m. J. J. I. YON DOLLINGER'S 
FABLES 

RESPECTING 

THE POPES m THE MIDDLE AGES, 
Translated by Alfred Plummer, 

Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford,- 

Together with Dr. Ddllinger's Essay on 

THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT 

AND THE I 

PROPHECIES OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA • 

Translated for the American Edition with an Introduction 
AND Notes 

BY HENRY B. SMITH, D. D., 

Professor in Union Theological Seminary, N. Y. 



DODD & MEAD, 
No. 762, Broadway, New York. 
1872. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 
DODD & MEAD, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The Library 

OF COKP^P^SS 



WASHINGTON 



INTRODUCTION. 



Dr. von Dollinger's Fables about the Popes in the 
Middle Ages ^ was published more than ten years 
ago ; the fruit, as the author says, of preparatory 
studies upon a larger work, the general History of the 
Papacy. The growing importance of all subjects 
bearing upon the development of the papal system, 
and the high reputation of Dr. Dollinger as a theolo- 
gian and as the leader of the so-called Old Catholic 
party in Germany, led to its translation last year in 
England by Mr. Alfred Plummer, a Fellow and Tutor 
of Trinity College, Oxford, and a pupil and personal 
friend of the author. In the present edition that 
translation is retained, here and there, revised from a 
comparison with the original. Mr. Plummer added 
the Appendices B to F, and also wrote a long and 
interesting Introduction to the English edition, giving 
a general review of the main topics of the work. This 

1 Die Papst-Fabeln des Mittelalters. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- 
geschichte von Joh. Jos. Ign. v. Dollinger. Zweite unveninderte 
Aiiflage. Miinchen, 1863. Literarisch-artistische Anstalt der J. Cr 
Cotta' schen Buchhandlung. 



II 



INTRODUCTION. 



has been left out, in part to make room for another 
valuable essay of Dr. Dollinger. We are, however, 
indebted to Mr. Plummer's Introduction for many 
facts about Dr. Dollinger's life and writings. The 
paragraphs in brackets are by the English translator, 
excepting those signed with the initials of the Ameri- 
can editor. 

The essay of Dr. Dollinger, translated for this 
American edition, is on The Prophetic Spirit and the 
Prophecies of the Christian Era. ^ It was published 
last year in the new series of von Raumer's Histor- 
isches Taschenbiich. It is an attractive subject, treated 
with great learning and ability ; and not the less 
interesting because of its silent bearing upon the 
questions and complications of the hour, especially 
the relation of the Italian Papacy to European 
Christendom. For now, as 'well as throughout 
mediaeval times, it may be said, in a broad general 
view, that Latins and Germans, Guelph and Ghibel- 
line, Ultramontanes and Cismontanes, the South and 
the North, the Papacy and the Empire, are arrayed 
against each other, and that the destiny of Con- 
tinental Europe hangs, as it has for fifteen hundred 

1 Der Weissagungsglaube und das Prophetentliiim in der christ- 
lichen Zeit: In the Histonsches Taschenbiich, begriindet von Friedrich 
von Eaumer, herausg. von W. H. Eiehl. Fiinfte Folg^. Erster ^ 
Jahrgang. Leipzig : F. A. Brockhaus, 1871. 



lYTRODUCTION. iii 



years, upon the results of this conflict. Besides this, 
however, the topic itself, as here treated, is one of 
profound interest in its psychological, as well as in its 
historical and religious connections. Such a historic 
review shows that man must look before as vv^ell as 
after ; he must remember the past and also strive 
to anticipate the future, — especially in the great joints 
and crises of events. Belief in Providence, as well as 
faith in Scripture, prompts men of deep thought and 
feeling to ascend some mount of vision, whence 
they may perchance descry the shadows of coming 
events. Nowhere has this profound theme been 
treated in so full and compressed a manner as in Dr. 
Dollinger's admirable summary. 

All of the dissertations of the present volume are 
important to a correct understanding of mediaeval 
times, and, indirectly, to a just appreciation of those 
mediaeval tendencies and institutions which still 
survive, and instinctively contend against reformation 
and progress. They are likewise valuable as indicating 
the process through which their distinguished author 
has passed in coming to his present position. History 
rather than dogma has brought him to oppose the 
decrees of the Vatican Council. He has examined 
and sifted the records, and found that the very tradi- 
tion of the Church disproves the present pretentions 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

of the Papacy. In his eloquent inaugural address last 
year, as Rector of the University of Munich, he 
declared that the Ultramontanists, unsuccessful in 
their warfare against science, are now striving to falsify 
history. In a recent lecture he is reputed to have 
said, that " the Papacy is based upon an audacious 
falsification of history. A forgery in its very outset, 
it has, during the long years of its existence, had a 
pernicious influence upon Church and State alike." 
The historic records must be altered, if the Papacy is 
to be upheld. And this is one reason why Roman 
Catholics all over the world are now contending for 
the ecclesiastical control of popular education. They 
want their own text-books in history as well as their 
own catechisms. 

Dr. John Joseph Ignatius von Dollinger celebrated 
his seventy- third birth day on the 28th of February 
last ; the celebration was in the Museum Hall of 
Munich, in connection with the fifth lecture of his 
recent course on the Reunion of Christendom. He 
was born at Wiirzburg in 1799, ordained as priest in 
1822, and in 1826 he became professor of theology in 
the new University of Munich. The same year he 
published his earliest work, The Doctrine of the Eu- 
charist in the first three Centnries, The first two 
volumes of his Church History came out from 1833 to 



INTRODUCTION, 



V 



1835 ; from 1836 to 1843, he published a Compendium 
of the History of the Church to the Reformation. The 
Enghsh translation of his Church History is " an un- 
skilful combination of these two." In 1838 he brought 
out a work on Mohammed's Religion, its Development 
and InfliLence. Between 1848 and 185 1 appeared his 
three volumes on The Reformation, its Internal De- 
velopment and Effects within the Sphere of the Luther- 
an Confession (Ratisbon) ; he had previously written, 
as far back as 1828, 2. History of the Reformation^ 
which formed the third volume of Hortig's Ecclesias- 
tical History. All of these works show great research, 
and ever-increasing largeness of view. He confessed 
to Mr. Plummer that his History of the Reformat con 
was " a one-sided book written with the definite object 
of disproving the theory that the German reformers 
revived pure Apostolic Christianity in the presbytery." 
The whole of the third bulky volume is in fact de- 
voted to an examination and refutation of the doctrine 
of justification by faith alone. 

In the University he meanwhile read lectures on 
the Philosophy of Religion, Canon Law, Symbolism, 
Patristics, and for a time on Dogmatic Theology. He 
also published several occasional pieces : — The Reli- 
gion of Shakespeare ; The Lttroduction of Christianity 
among the Germans ; A Commentary on Dante s Para- 



VI 



INTRODUCTION, 



dise, accompanied with the designs of Cornelius ; 
Mixed Marriages (1838); The English Tractarians ; 
JoJin Huss; The Albigenses ; The Duty and Law of the 
Qmrch toward those who die in other Communions (on 
the occasion of the death of the Queen Dowager of 
Bavaria, 1842); Error, Donbt and Triithy 1845, being 
an address to the students of the University ; a speech 
on The Freedom of the Church, 1849, before the 
Cathohc Union of Germany ; Martin Lttther, a Sketch, 
1852. He superintended an edition of his colleague 
Mohler's minor writings. For several years he was 
the editor of the Historisch-politiscJie Blatter (for which 
however he did not write much), an able periodical 
devoted to the interests of the Catholic reactionary 
party in Southern Germany. 

Dr. DoUinger has also taken a prominent part in 
the political movements of his times. He represented 
the University in the Bavarian Chamber from 1845 
to 1847 ; several of his speeches have been published. ^ 
In 1847 he was deprived of his professorship, and 
consequently of his seat in the Chamber, where the 
ministers who had been raised to power by Lola 
Montez dreaded his eloquence and character. Having 

1 Drei Reden, gehalten auf dem bayerischen Landtage, 1846. 
1. Die Kirchlichen Antnige des Reichrathes. 2. Die' Protestan- 
tischen Bescliwerden. 3. Die Judenfrage. 



INTRODUCTION. 



VII 



been elected a deputy to the National Parliament in 
1848, he spoke and wrote with great effect in favor of 
religious liberty ; and the definition of the relation 
between Church and State, which was passed at Franc- 
fort, and afterwards nominally adopted both at 
Vienna and Berlin, is said to have been his work. ^ In 
1849 was restored to his professorship and also to 
his seat in the Chamber, which last he resigned two 
years later, to devote himself entirely to his literary 
labors. 

He took part in the controversy excited by the 
discovery of the Philosophumenay 185 1 (at first 
ascribed to Origen, but probably the work of Hippo- 
lytus) by the publication in 1853 of his Hippolytiis 
and Callistus ; or, the Roman Chicrch in the first half 
of the Third Century^ reviewing the writings of Bunsen, 
Baur, Wordsworth and Gieseler, and showing himself 
their equal in learning and skill and power of historic 
combination. His Paganism and Judaism, translated 
into English by the Rev. N. Darnell under the title 
of The Gentile and the Jew, is a very learned and able 
introduction to the general history of the Christian 
Church. In i860 appeared The First Age of Chris- 
tianity and the Churchy translated by Rev. H. N. 
Oxenham ; and the next year The Church and the 

1 Mr. Plummer's Introduction, pp. xi., xii. 



VIII 



INTRODUCTION. 



Churches^ translated by Mr. W. B. Maccabe — which 
more than any of his previous volumes made his name 
familiar in England and this country. His inaugural 
address, 1867, when first chosen Rector of the Uni- 
versity, was on The Uitiversities as they Were and Are; 
it was published in an enlarged form (p. 58). It 
gives an excellent account of the rise, growth and 
present state of the university system in Europe ; 
though it hardly does full justice to the provisions for 
higher education in Great Britain and this country. 

His recent course is well known. The letters on 
Rome and the Council^ by Janus, were doubtless in- 
spired by him, though said to be written by Professor 
Huber ; the famous letters of Quirinus, chiefly from 
Rome, are of a kindred character. Dollinger's De- 
clarations about the decree of Infallibility, his reply 
to the sentence of excommunication by the Arch- 
bishop of Munich, his speech at the Old Catholic 
Congress in Munich, his Inaugural Address when 
recently called for the second time to be Rector of 
the University, his recent lectures at Munich on the 
Reunion of Christendom, especially the one on Luther, 
and that on the past attempts to frame schemes for 
uniting the Roman Catholic and the Protestant 
Churches — these publications have followed in rapid 
succession, and their fame has gone abroad into all 



INTRODUCTION. 



IX 



lands. They would be well worth gathering into 
another volume. He is said, by Mr. Plummer, to 
intend continuing his treatise on Prophecies^ etc., by 
an essay on " Dante as a Prophet," in both senses of 
the word, i. e., as a great and inspired teacher, and 
as a seer, or foreteller of future events ; aspects of the 
great mediseval poet which have hitherto been com- 
paratively lost sight of. He is also engaged on a work 
treating of the "Constitution and Internal Government 
of the Church." 

Many of the Old CathoHcs are hardly satisfied 
with Dr. DoUinger's present position, thinking it to be 
indefinite and untenable. But, in all great changes, 
untenable positions must be taken up for a time ; 
some persons, some Churches, may remain in them for 
a long time ; a vital and growing movement will soon 
pass beyond them. And we ought rather to rejoice 
that "the Nestor of the German Catholic theology" 
(as the able Canonist von Schulte, of Prague, calls Dr. 
DoUinger) has advanced so far, than blame him for not 
yet being a thorough Protestant. In his successive 
recent publications his tone is becoming firmer and 
clearer. In his last course of lectures he speaks of 
Luther as he has never done before : " The mind and 
heart of the Germans were in Luther's hands as the 
lyre in the hands of the musician. Did he not give 



X 



INTRODUCTION. 



to his nation more than any other man in Christian 
times ever gave to a nation, — language, books for all, 

the Bible, church hymns ? Others were stam^ 

mering, he spoke ; he alone it is who has impressed 
the ineffaceable stamp of his genius, not only upon 
the German language, but also upon the German mind. 
And even those Germans who detest him from the 
depths of their souls as th^ mighty heretic and 
seducer of the nation, are forced to speak in his words 
and think with his thoughts." In his fifth lecture he 
discourses about the Papacy thus : " The opinion 
[that the Pope is Antichrist] has not been formed 
without the guilt of Rome. When the popes again 
and again encouraged religious wars, when they 
recommended and demanded the bloody extirpation 
of all who believed otherwise than themselves, when 
even in the seventeenth century men were executed 
at Rome itself on account of their Protestantism — the 
people could hardly fail to believe that the Papacy 
must be the Woman, of whom John says that she 
was drunken with the blood of saints, and the Man of 
Sin, of whom Paul prophesied as coming with lying 
wonders, and exalting himself above all that is called 
God, in that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, 
showing himself that he is God." ( 2 Thess. ii., 3, 4.) 
He may not adopt this ''popular " view, but he thinks 
it natural enough. 



INTRODUCTION, 



XI 



Dr. DoUinger bides his time. He moves cautiously 
yet firmly. And who can tell what a few months may 
TDring forth ? It may be that in Southern Germany, 
a National German Cathohc Church will yet be found 
necessary by the government, to prevent the newly 
shaped Vatican decree of Infallibility from overriding 
the old and ever- reserved rights and relative 
independence of the nations. For that decree claims 
for the Papacy, not only omniscience in all. that man 
can know about faith and morals, but also the right to 
make its decisions directly binding on every Roman 
Catholic conscience, without appeal, and against any 
and every other earthly power. 

In a recent conversation with an American citizen 
of high standing, Dr. DoUinger is reported to have 
said to him : "Do you in the United States compre- 
hend what that doctrine (Papal Infallibility) involves } 
It imposes upon those who accept it the solemn 
obligation to violate civil law, to set themselves up in 
opposition to the ordinances of your Government 
whenever the Pope shall pronounce his infallible 
judgment against any one of those ordinances upon 
moral or religious grounds. In a word, it is the 
assumption of power on the part of the Pope to 
proclaim a higher law, which, according to the dogma, 
his children must obey, though such obedience 



XII 



INTRODUCTION. 



involves treason to the State, and the overthrow of 
your Government." 

Sooner than many people suspect, we may begin to 
feel the effects of this new dogma in a new policy on 
the part of Roman Catholics. This must be so if the 
Decree is faithfully applied. Revision of many of our 
laws as to education, ecclesiastical property, and the 
amenability of the priesthood to civil tribunals, may 
soon be demanded. This portends serious disturb- 
ances in our political and religious life. We may soon 
have to face the question, whether the canon law or 
the civil law is to be the law of the land. — H. B. S. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

The present publication is the fruit of a course of 
reading and study which I undertook with a view to 
a more considerable work, intended to embrace the 
history of the Papacy. It seemed to me, however, 
that the results of my researches, which are here 
given to the public, formed to some extent as a con- 
nected whole, because all these fables and inventions 
— however different may have been the occasions 
which gave them birth, and however intentional or 
unintentional may have been their production — have, 
nevertheless, had at times a marked influence on the 
whole aspect of the Middle Ages, on the history and 
poetry of the time, on its theology, and its juris- 
prudence. For this reason I may, perhaps, venture 
to hope that not only theologians and ecclesiastical 
historians, but lovers and students of mediaeval 
history and mediaeval literature in general, will find 
this book not altogether devoid of interest. 

J. V. DoLLINGER. 

Munich, May 24th, 1863. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

Mediaeval Fables about the Popes. 

PAGE. 

1. POPE JOAK. 

Not yet sufSiciently proved to be a myth 4 

Not an inexplicable riddle 6 

Eight explanations stated , . . . 7 

All eight assume that the story is older than the 13th 

century 9 

The Papess not mentioned by Marianus Scotus 10 

nor by Sigebert of G-emblours 11 

nor by Otto of Freysingen 12 

Stephen de Bourbon the first chronicler who mentions 

her 14 

Martinus Polonus the chief means of spreading the story. . 16 

Even in his case the story is an interpolation 18 

Various ways of interpolating 20 

In " Anastasius " also the story is a later addition 24 

Eeasons for inserting the Papess between Leo IV. and 

Benedict III 25 

Writers who copy Martinus Polonus 28 

Writers of the 14th century who mention her 29 

The Dominicans and Minorites spread the story 32 

Used as an argument at the council of Constance 34 

The Dominicans might easily have exposed the story 36 

Not known to the Greeks till 1450-1500 38 

Aventin and Onufrio Panvinio the first to deny it 40 

Analysis of thb Story 

Discrepancies about the name of the Papess 40 

the date of her Pontificate. 41 

her previous abode 42 

the mode of the catastrophe 43 

Boccacio's version probably the popular one 44 

15 



XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



Obigin of the Story. 

Four elements of production. — 1 . A statue - 4 

2. An inscription 4 

3. A seat of unusual shape 5 

4. A custom 5 

Examples of similar Stories. 

The two wives of the Count of Gleichen 5 

The Piistrich at Sondershausen 6 

Archbishop Hatto and the mice 6 

Figure on the Riesenthor of Vienna Cathedral 6' 

The origin of the house of Colonna 61 

Abode of the Papess. 

Why represented as coming from England 6( 

Mayence 67 

Athens 72 

II. POPE CYRIACUS. 

This fiction had a definite object V5 

Visions of the nun Elizabeth of Schunau 75 

St. Ursula and her maidens 76 

Abdication of Cyriacus 77 

Martinus Polonus the chief means of spreading the storj-. , 77 

The story brought to bear on the abdication of Coelestine V. 79 

III. MAECELLINUS. 

The story of his abdication rery ancient 81 

The whole story a tissue of absurdities 83 

Its object, to prove that popes are above all tribunals 84 

Probable date of its fabrication 85 

Use made of it by Nicolas I., Gerson, and Gerbert 87 

IV. CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 

Multitude of writers who mention the baptism of Constan- 

tine by Syh-ester at Rome. 88 

The true account seemed incredible in the Middle Ages... 88 

The story certainly originated in Rome. 91 

Probable date of its fabrication 92 

Not generally accepted at tirst 93 

Influence of the Liher Pontificalis 95 

Attempt of Ekkehard to reconcile the two accounts 96, 

Theory of Bonizo of Sutri 97 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, xvii 

Italian chroniclers who follow him 93 

The story appealed to by Hadrian I., Nicolas I., and Leo 

IX 99 

Johannes Malalas the first Greek who accepts it 100 

The true account seemed incredible to the Greeks also,... 100 

^neas Sylvius and Nicolas of Cusa kneAv the truth 102 

The truth spreads slowly 102 

Its final triumph due to French theologians 103 

The story a favourite subject for poems 103 

V. THE DONATION OF CONST ANTINE. 

Account of the Donation in the Liber Pontificalis sus- 
picious 104 

Evidence of Hadrian I 105 

No traces of the Donation till about 750 105 

Theory that it was a Greek fabrication disproved by the 

language of the document 107 

The Greek text an evident translation 1 i 

Why the Greeks so readily believed in the Donation . .... 113 

Accepted in the West even before known to the Greeks, . . 114 

The work of a Eoman ecclesiastic 115 

Probable date of the forgery 116 

Eoman hoiTor of the Lombards 116 

Not ungrounded T 118 

Scheme of Gregory II. to make Eome independent 120 

The D(matiOn gave an historic basis to this scheme. ..... 121 

Not fabricated by the pseudo-Isidore 122 

Contents of the document 123 

The momentous ninth clause 125 

Change oi ''or " into " and " 126 

The senate, patriciate, and consulate in the 8th century... 127 

Papal officialt^: an imitation of imperial oificials 127 

Stated object of the Donation 131 

Cevtainiy known in Rome before 850 132 

^neas of Paris treats it as authentic 133 

Hincmar and Ado are more reserved 133 

Leo IX. shows full belief in it 134 

Remarkable silence of Gregory VII 134 

Urban li, claims Corsica on tlae strength of it . , , . 135 

Hadrian IV. gives Ireland to Henry II. on the strength 

of it 136 

Neapolitar, clergy fabricate a Donation 139 

The Donation disputed in Eome when found inconvenient 

by monks 140 

by followers of Arnold of Brescia. . 141 

But, though disputed, still largely used 143 



XVIII TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



Claims of the popes to the imperial insignia and homage . . 145 

Dissatisfaction m Germany at such claims 14? 

Historians, more cautious than the clergy, limii w'thout 

denying the Donation 148 

From the 12th to 14th century its authority increases l.')L 

Innocent IV.'s statement of papal supremacy ^ 153 

Lawyers allowed the Donation only the rigiit of , in- 
scription 156 

Uncertainty as to its extent 158 

Extension given to it by German law- 'ouk.s ' 164 

Two opposite views respecting it : — 

1. That it and similar endowments were admirable 166 

2. That the wealth of the Church was a source of infinite 
^evil 168 

Hence the story of the angel's lament... . . . , 171 

Mediseval sects adopted the second view 173 

The fiction exposed by iEneas Sylvius 177 

Also by Bishop Pecock, Cardinal Cusa, and Lorenzo Valla 
its last defenders , 178- 

VL LIBEEIUS AND FELIX. 

The true account 183 

Felix an antipope 183 

Liberius an apostate 185 

He is fairly called heretical 186 

He re-establishes Ms orthodoxy 189 

Felix more culpable, and without excuse 190 

The fable 191 

Object of it to whitewash the party of Felix 192 

Not older than the 6th century 192 

Version of the Liher Poniificalis and of the Acts of Felix. . 192 

Version of the Acts of Eusebius 196 

Name of Felix inserted into martyrologies, calendars. &c. . 197 

He is confounded with the African martyr Felix 199 

The fable originated in the Liber Poniifi alis 202 

Difficulties when the truth became known in the 16 th 

century 205 

A forged inscription 2'i6 

Paoli's monstrous hypothesis 207 

The fable finally abandoned 209 

VII. ANASTASIUS II. 

Anastasius II 219 

Dante selects him as an instance of an heretical pope 210 

Was he a heretic 212 

Dante's eiTor the common belief of the time 216 

This erroneous belief creat.d mainly by Gratian 219 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xix 



VIII. THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 



Opposite fate of Honoriiis and Anastasiiis 223 

Monothelitism an attempted compromise between mono- 

physitism and orthodoxy 223 

Honorins confessedly a monothelite 228 

Anathematized by the Vlth general council 229 

For actual heresy, not for mere negligence 230 

The papal legates vote for the anathema 233 

Pope Agatho's vain attempt to avert the anathema 234 

Leo IT, confirms the anathema 235 

The Liher Diurnus requires every pope to confirm the 

anathema 236 

Marked silence of the Liber Pont'ficalis 237 

The anathema treated in the East as a matter of course . . . 240 

Hincmar of Rheims assents to it 240 

Silence of the Liber Pontificalis followed by historians. . , . 241 

The anathema on a pope is thus forgotten 241 

Leo IX. shows utter ignorance of it 243 

A Greek first reminds the West of the fact 246 

Torquemada sacrifices the council to save Honorius 247 

The question not seriously debated till the 16th century.. 248 

Various Hypotheses. 

1. That the Acts of the Council have been interpolated. . . . 248 

2. That they are really the Acts of another synod 249 

3. That the letters of Honorius are forgeries 249 

4. That Honorius wa^ condemned for negligence only. . . . 250 

5. That the letters of Sergius are forgeries • 1:53 

6. That the letters of Leo 11, are also forgeries 254 

7. That Honorius was condemned by the Greeks only. ... 254 

8. That Honorius wrote, not as pope, but as a private 
teacher 255 

The Monothelitism of Honorius would never have been 
questioned, had he not been pope 256 

IX. POPE GREGORY II. AND THE EMPEROR LEO III. 

Gregory II. represented as heading a revolt against Leo 

III..., 257 

Martinus Polonus once more the propagator of error 257 

Theophanes the source of the statement 258 

Gregory headed no revolt, but helped to quash one 260 

View of Gregorovius inconsistent with facts and itself. ... 262 

Difficult position of Gregory II 264 



XX 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



Z. STLVESTEE II. 



Gradual defamation of his memoiy 267 

1. That he was too fond of profane arts and sciences 267 

2. That his election at Eaveuna was dne to sinister arts. . 268 

3. That he was addicted to magic and hlack art 268 

4. That he sold himself to the devil 269 

The fahle of Eoman origin 270 

Its object 270 

The Dominicans spread the fahle 272 

The truth recognised in the 14th century 272 



PART II. 

The Prophetic Spirit and the Prophecies of 
THE Christian Era. 

I. INTRODUCTION". 

Contrast between the prophetic spirit in Heathendom and 



in Christendom 273 

Four orders of prophecies 274 

Ecclesiastical prophecies 275 

Three-fold origin of predictions 275 

Spontaneous prophecies 276 

Predictions with a purpose 277 

Dynastic prophecies 278 

Predicted succession of the popes 281 

The predictions of Joachim 282 

The predictions of Malachias 283 

Hess' prophecy of the Eeformation 284 

Cazotte and Beauregard 284 

II. PEOPHECIES OF THE EAELTEE TIMES : ANTI- 
CHRIST ; THE END OF THE WOELD. 

The Sibylline books 286 

End of the Eoman Empire 287 

The Antichrist 288 

The literature about the Antichrist 290 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxi 

IIT. NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 

From a sense of national guilt 293 

Among subjugated nations 294 

Merlin and his prophecies 295 

The ancient Britons, Cymri 295 

Merlin in Southern Europe 296 

Galfried's History of the Britons 297 

•J'he German Dragon and the Red Dragon 299 

King Arthur 300 

Merlin's influence on the Welsh. , 301 

The Irish predictions 302 

The Scotch predictions 303 

The Portuguese predictions 304 

Sebastian and the Sebastianists 305 

The prophecies of Vieira 306 

Byzantine prophecies 308 

Constantinople 3H 

George of Trapezium 312 

IV. THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME. 

« The Eternal City" 314 

Rome and the end of the world 316 

Prediction of St. Benedict 317 

Richard Rolle de Hampole 318 

Charles V. l : , 319 

Bishop Berthold's Prophecy 319 

Bartholomeo Brandano and Clement VII 320 

The Church to be saved by fleeing from Rome 323 

V. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROPHETS. 

No special sanctity required 324 

A double consciousness 325 

Thomas Aquinas on the Prophets 325 

False prophecy of Peter Damiani 327 

False prophecy of St. Bernard 328 

False prophecy of Vincents Ferrer 329 

Prophecy of Catharine of Siena . 330 

St. Brigitta nearer right 331 

Two currents of prophecy 331 

Savonarola an unwilling prophet 332 

Campanella, his prophecies and persecutions 333 

Dionysius Ryckel " the ecstatic teacher" 335 

Nicolas of Cusa 335 

Robert of Usez 337 

Holzhauser's visions , 337 



XXII TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

VI. THE COSMOPOLITICAL PEOPHECIES. 

Four periods of tlie same 339 

From the ninth to the eleventh century 340 

The Holy Eoman Empire 340 

Eevelations of Methodius 341 

The Abbot Adso on the last conflict 342 

The Mongol Irruption 344 

Gog and Magog , 344 

Brandt's edition of Methodius 346 

The prophetess Hildcgarde 348 

Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy 351 

Separation of Empire and Papacy 353 

Predicted destiny of the empire 354 

Jordan of Osnabriick 355 

The Belgian chronicler, Dynter 357 

Eoger Bacon 359 

Influence of Astrology 359 

The Flagellants, in 1260 360 

The Papa Angelico in Bacon 361 

The Emperor Frederick II 362 

The Catharists 363 

- Dolcino in Italy ; and the war he occasioned 364 

VII. THE JOACHIMITES. 

Joachim's prophetic gifts 364 

His great repute and sanctity 366 

Prophecies under his name 369 

The unfulfilled prophecies 369 

Salimbene's position 370 

John of Parma and Bonavcntura 373 

General view of Joachim's system 374 

The three great periods 374 

The last period 376 

The Empire misunderstood by the Guelphs 378 

Difference between the true and false Joachim 379 

French and not Italians first attack Joachim 380 

William of St Amour 380 

Gherardino's Eternal Gospel 382 

His " Introductorius " condemned 383 

Exact dates given up 384 

Seven periods 384 

D'Olive on the Apocalypse 385 

Ubertino's work (in note) 385 

Antichrist to be on the papal chair 386 

Boniface VIII. "the new Lucifer" 386 

Summary about the " Spirituals " 388 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxiil 

The prophecy of C5^nl from Constantinople 389 

Arnold of Villanova 390 

Prophecies about the rchgious Orders 391 

VIII. THE PEOPHETIC SPIRIT FEOM THE FOUE- 
TEENTH CENTUEY TO THE BEGINNING- OF 
THE EEFOEMATION. 

The Silver Tables of Cyril 393 

Cola di Eienzo 393 

The <' Papa Angelicus" 394 

Petrarch s Sonnet on Eome 395 

Jean <-U la Eochelaillarde 396 

Catharine of Siena and Brigitta , .. 398 

Eome canonizes these prophets 399 

Brigitta's Pi-ediction applied to Pius IX 400 

The Blaci^ Death 401 

The Umsades and Palestine 402 

The Angelic Pope again 403 

The fate of the Monk Theodore 404 

Savonarola as " Papa Angeiicus ' 405 

The " Papa Angelicus" quadrupled 406 

Joachimites and Anti-Joachimites 407 

He nry of Langenstem 407 

The Predictions of Telesphoius 409 

He revives the prediction about Frederick III, 410 

But applies it to the French King 410 

Garaakon's count( r German prophecy 411 

Theological refutation of Telesphorus by Henry of 

Langenstein ., . 412 

Waruing- more general as (he Eeformation drew near 413 

Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln 414 

Macchiavelli and Pico of Aiirandula 414 

The prophecies of Savonarola 415 

His sagacity like that of Cicero and Du Vair 416 

His political prophecies true and religious false 417 

German popular prophecies 419 

John Lichtenberger and the prophecies ascribed to him. . . 419 

Aytiiiger and Griinpeckh 420 

John Hagen's warnings 421 

Henry of Langenstein 422 

German prophecies of a German pope 423 

Bishop Berthold's " Burden of the Church " 424 

The Swiss poet Gengenbach on the Emperor Maximilian. 425 

Close of the fifteenth century 425 



XXIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



APPENDICES. 



A. The Papess in theTegernsce MS 427 

B. FurtliL'i- particulars about Pope Joan 430 

C. Illustration of the growth of Myths 438 

D. Pope Hadrian's I etter to Henry of England 444 

E. Ex Cathedra Definitions 447 

F. Defenders of Honorius, etc 456 

G. Tiie Prophecies of Malachias 4G2 



PART I. 

MEDIEVAL FABLES ABOUT THE POPES. 



I. POPE JOAN. 

The subject of Pope Joan has not yet lost the interest 
which belongs to it as a fact in the province of his- 
torical criticism. The literature respecting her reaches 
down to the very latest times. As recently as 1843 
and 1845 two works on this question appeared 
from the pens of two Dutch scholars ; the one by 
Professor Kist,^ to prove the existence of Pope Joan, 
the other, a very voluminous one, by Professor 
Wensing, of Warmond, to disprove Kist's position. 
In Italy Bianchi-Giovini wrote a book on the 
subject in the same year, 1845, without being aware 
of the works of the two Dutch writers. In Germany 
no one— at any rate of those who know anything of 

1 [u4 Woman in the Chair 0/ S. Peter. Another edition of this has 
lately appeared ; Grutersloh, 1866. Professor Kist thinks that Pope 
Joan was possibly the widow of Leo IV.] 

[Kist's Essay was first published in the JVederlandsch Archie/ voor 
Kerkelijke Geschiedenis, iii, 27. See Gieseler's Church History^ 
New York edition, vol. ii, pp. 30-1, — a long note, summing up all 
the data in the case. H. B. S.j 



4 POPE JOAN. 

history — will easily be induced to entertain a serious 
belief in the existence of the female pope. To do so, 
one must do violence to every principle of historical 
criticism. But with the banishment of the subject to 
the realm of fable all has not yet been completely 
accomplished. The riddle — how this strange myth 
originated — remains still to be solved. 

Nothing but the insufficiency and ill-success of all 
previous attempts at an explanation can account for 
it that a man like Luden, in his History of the German 
People} does all he can to make the reality of the 
well-known myth at an}^ rate probable. " It is in- 
" conceivable," says he, " how it could ever enter into 
" any man's head to invent such a foolish, insane 
" falsehood. He must either have invented his lie 
"out of sheer wantonness in order to scoff at the 
papacy, or he must have intended to gain some 
" other object by means of it. But of all the dozens 
" of writers who mention Pope Joan and her mishap, 
there is not a single one who can be called an 
enemy of the papacy. They are clergy, monks, 
" guileless people, who notice this phenomenon in the 
" same dry way in which they mention other things, 
" that seem to them to be strange, wonderful, 
" laudable, abominable, or in any way worth men- 

1 Geschichte des deuischen Volkes, vi., 513-517. 



POPE JOAN. 5 

" tioning." " And it cannot be imagined," says Luden 
further on, what object could seem to any one to 
" be attainable by means of such a falsehood. More- 
" over, it is inconceivable how people in general 
" could have believed in the story, and that without 
" the slightest doubt, for nearly 500 years from the 

eleventh century onwards, if it had not been true." 

It is here to be noted that Luden make the myth of 
Pope Joan a matter of general belief from the eleventh 
century onwards. It would be very much nearer the 
truth to say that it did not find general belief till 
the middle of the fourteenth century. The author, 
however, of the article on Pope Joan in the Noiivelle 
Biographie Gcnerale, published at Paris by Dr. Hofer, 
as lately as 1858, goes much further.^ "This belief 
prevailed in the christian world from the ninth c'entury 
to the Renaissance." And to crown it all, Hase thinks 
it, at any rate, credible that the Church, not content 
with creating facts, annihilated them, also, whenever 
the knowledge of them seemed critical for the already 
tottering papacy.^ According to Hase and Kist, 
then, we must state the matter thus : that soon after 
the year 85 5 an edict issued from Rome to this effect : 

Let no one presume to say a word about the fact of 
" a female pope," for at that time Rome did not feel 

1 Vol. xxTi., p. 569. 2 Kirchengeschichte^ T. Aufl. s. 213. 



6 



POPE JO AN. 



her position to be as yet very secure. About the 
middle of the thirteenth century, however, a counter 
order issued from the same place : " Henceforth it 
" is lawful to discuss history ; we now consider our 
" position safe, and can venture to let the narrative 
" appear in historical works." 

The judgment of Kurtz is, at any rate, more sober 
and free from prejudice.^ " The evidence before us,'* 
he says, " forbids us to assign to the myth any histo- 
*' rical value whatever. We must, however, (quite 
" apart from the falsification of the acts, which, in 
" some cases, is manifest, in others is a matter of 
" suspicion,) characterize the myth as a riddle, which 
criticism has as yet not solved, and probably never 
" wilir 

That the riddle has not yet been solved, that all 
attempts at explanation which have been made up to 
the present time, must be held to have miscarried, 
is true enough ; that a solution which may satisfy the 
historian is, nevertheless, possible, it will be the object 
of the following pages to show. 

Let us first glance for a moment at the explana- 
tions which have been set forth up to this time. 
Baronius considers the myth to be a satire on John 

I Handbuch der Kirchengesckichie, 1856, ii. Band, 1. Abtheilimg g, 
225. 



POPE JOAN. 7 

VIII., "ob nimiam ejus animi facilitatem et mollitu- 
dinem," qualities which he exhibited more especially 
in the affair of Photius. Others, Aventine to begin 
with, and after him Heumann and Schrockh, prefer to 
reckon the supposed satire as one on the period 
of female rule in Rome, the reign of Theodora and ' 
Marozia under certain popes, some of whom were 
called John ; in which case, however, it would have to 
be transferred from the middle of the ninth century to 
the tenth. The opinion published by the Jesuit 
Secchi in Rome, that it is a calumny originating with 
the Greeks, namely with Photius, is eqally inadmissi- 
ble. The first Greek who mentions the circumstance 
is the monk Barlaam in the fourteenth century. Pagi's 
assertion also, which Eckhart supports, that the myth 
was an invention of the Waldenses, is pure imagina- 
tion. The myth evidently originated in Rome itielf, 
and the first to give it circulation were not the 
Waldenses, but their most deadly enemies — the 
Dominicans and Minorites. 

Leo Allatius thought that a false prophetess called 
Thiota, in the ninth century, gave occasion to this 
myth. The explanation invented by Leibnitz^ is also 
a forced attempt to meet the exigencies of the case. 

1 Flores sparsi in Tumulum Papissoe, ap. Scheid, Biblioth. His. 
Goetting., p. 367. 



8 



POPE JOAN, 



There might very well, he thinks, have been a foreign 
bishop (pontifex /. e. episcopus), really a woman in dis- 
guise, who gave birth to a child during a procession 
at Rome, and thus gave occasion to the story. 

Blasco and Henke supposed that the myth about 
the female pope was a satirical allegory on the origin 
and circulation of the false decretals of Isidore. This 
interpretation, however, is entirely at variance with 
the genius of that century, an age in which men had 
no sense for satirical allegories ; and then too it 
refutes itself, for the story of Pope Joan originated at 
a time when no one doubted the genuineness of the 
false decretals of Isidore. Nevertheless, Gfrorer has 
lately taken up this idea, and worked it out in a still 
more artificial manner.^ " The whole force of the 
fable," he says, ''resides in these two points, that the 
" woman was a native of Mayence, and that she came 
" from Greece (Athens), and ascended the papal chair. 
" In the first particular I recognise a condemnation 
" directed against the canons of the pseudo-Isidore, in 
" the second an allegorical censure of the alliance 
" which Leo IV. wished to make with the Byzan- 
" tines. . . It is said that in the later days of Leo IV. 
" the papal power in Mayence and Greece was abused, 
*' or to make use of a metaphor, of which the Italians 

1 Kirchengeschichte^ iii., iii., 978. 



POPE JOAN. 9 

" are very fond in such cases, was at that time 
prostitutedr Side by side with this explanation, 
which can scarcely fail to provoke a smile from any 
one who is acquainted with the Middle Ages, stands 
the extraordinary circumstance, that there is no 
authority whatever for this intention of Leo IV. to 
•compromise himself more than was right with the 
Byzantines. It is purely an hypothesis of Gfrorer's. 
But the myth about Pope Joan, as thus interpreted, 
is in turn made to do further service as a proof of the 
correctness of this hypothesis, as well as for his 
assumption that the false decretals originated in 
Mayence. 

In short, all the attempts at explanation, which 
have hitherto been made, split on this rock — that the 
myth had its origin in a much later age ; when the 
remembrance of the events and circumstances of the 
ninth and tenth centuries had long ago faded away, 
or at most existed only in the case of individual 
scholars, and, therefore, could not form material for 
the construction of a myth. That is to say, I believe, 
that I can without difficulty produce convincing 
evidence, that the myth about the female-pope, though 
it may possibly have had somewhat earlier circula- 
tion in the mouth of the people, was not definitively 
put into writing before the middle of the thirteenth 



lO 



POPE JOAN. 



century. This evidence could not have been given 
with anything hke certainty before the present time. 
For it is only during the last f ortv^ years tha t^^ll 
the stores of mediaeval manuscripts in the whole of 
Europe have been hunted through with a care such as 
was never known before. Every library corner has 
been searched, and an astounding quantity of his- 
torical documents, hitherto unknown (what a mass of 
new material exists in the Pertz collection alone, for 
instance!), has been brought to light. Nevertheless, 
not a single notice of the myth about Pope Joan has 
been discovered, which is earlier than the close, or, at 
the very most, the middle of the thirteenth century. 
We can now say quite positively, that in the collected 
Hterature, whether western or Byzantine, of the four 
centuries between 850 and 1250, there is not the 
faintest reference to the circumstance of a female 
pope. 

For a long time it was supposed that the myth, 
though certainly not to be found in any author of the 
ninth or tenth century, appeared as already in ex- 
istence in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Marianus 
Scotus^ is said to have been the first to mention the 

1 [This was written in 1863.] 

2 [Born, probably in Ireland, about 1028 ; died at Mayence, 1086 , 
not to be confounded with Marianus, the Franciscan, a Florentine 
writer of the fifteenth century. In 1056 Marianus Scotus entered the 



POPE JOAN, 



II 



female pope, and he certainly does mention her in the 
text as given by Pistorius. Now, however, that the 
text in the great Pertz collection has been edited by 
Waitzi according to the most ancient manuscripts, 
the fact has come to light, that Marianus knew 
nothing whatever of Pope Joan. In his case, as in 
the case of so many other authors, the short mention 
of the female pope has been interpolated at a later 
period. In the chronicle of Sigebert of Gemblours, 
and the supplements of the monks of Orcamp {Auc- 
tariiLm Ursicampinunt)^ the notice of the papess is 
wanting in all original manuscripts. She was first 
inserted by the first editor in the year 1513.^ Kurtz 

abbey of S. Martin at Cologne 5 in 1059 he moved to the abbey of 
Fulda, and thence in 1069 to Mayence. He passed for the most 
learned man of his age, being a mathematician and theologian as 
well as historian. His Chronicon Universale is based on Cassiodorus, 
augmented from Eusebius and Bede, and the chronicles of Hildes- 
heim and Wiirzburg, and extends down to the year 1083 ; published 
at Basle by Herold, 1559.] 

1 Monumenta German. Hist, viii., 550. [v. 551. vi. 340, 470.] 

2 " In nullo quem noverimus Sigeberti codice occurrit locus 
" famosus de Johanna papissa, quem hoc loco editio princeps ex- 

hibet," says the latest editor, Bethmann, ap. Pertz, viii., 340. Com- 
pare the remark, p. 470, where Bethmann says decisively, " nemo 
" igitur restat (as interpolater of the passage) nisi primus editor, 
" sive is Antonius Kufus fuerit, sive Henricus Stephanus." It is a 
mistake when Kurtz elsewhere (p. 228) says with regard to Sigebert 
and Marianus : " The oldest editors would scarcely have added the 
" passages in question out of their own heads ; and therefore it is 
" probable that the passages were purposely omitted in the codices 



12 



POPE JOAN, 



has lately appealed again to the supposed evidence of 
Otto of Freysingen.^ In the list of the popes, con- 
tinued down to the year 1 5 1 3, which is printed with 
his historical work,^ Pope John VII. (in the year 705) 
is marked as a woman, without one single word of 
explanation. And in the edition of the PaiitheoJi, as 
given by Pistorius, we find in the list of the popes 
these words, " the Papess Johanna is not reckoned." 

Meanwhile a close investigation of the oldest and 
best manuscripts of Gottfried's Pantheon and of Otto's 
chronicle have brought it to light, that originally 
neither the word " foemina " was placed in Otto's 
chronicle against the name of John VI L, nor the gloss 
" Johanna Papissa non numeratur " in the Pantheon 

" which they had before them." There are no signs whaterer of 
anything being intentionally omitted or effaced ; in many of the 
manuscripts, on the other hand, there are many signs of subsequent 
insertions and additions in the margin. [Sigebert was born about 
1030, and died 1112. His chronicle extends from 381, where Euse- 
bius ended, to 1112.] 

1 Kirchengeschichte^ ii., 226 

2 [Otto, Bishop of Freysingen, went with his brother, Conrad III., 
on his crusade to the Holy Land, resuming his diocese on his return. 
He died in September 1158, having held the see twenty years. His 
chronicle in seven books extends down to 1146. The first four books 
are a mere compilation from Orosius, Eusebius, Isidore, Bede, &c. ; 
the last three are of great value. He also wrote two books De Gesiis 
Fride.ici I. JEnobarbi, which come down to the year 1157.J 



POPE JOAN. 



13 



between Leo IV. and Benedict III.; both of which 
insertions are given in the printed editions. 

In the chronicle of Otto the addition to the name 
of John VII. is manifestly the work of a later copyist 
or reader, who inserted the word quite at random, 
because he was bound to have a female John some- 
where among the popes. The fact that this John 
comes as early as the year 705 was the less likely to 
puzzle him, because the list of popes in this chronicle 
does not give the dates.^ 

The first who really took up the myth is the 
author of a chronicle, to which Stephen de Bourbon 
appeals without giving any more exact quota- 

1 [That confusion prevailed in some of the lists of the popes 
precisely at this point is shown by an annalist, who apparently 
wrote in Halberstadt 854: "Benedictus papa, ut qiiidam volunt, 
" hoc anno factus est, et post hunc Paulas (!), post eum Stephanus 
" per annos quatuor sedisse inveniuntur.'' — Baxmann, Politik der 
Papste, i., p. 361, note.] 

2 In the good original manuscripts of the Pantheon in the royal 

library at Munich the addition about Pope Joan is wanting. These 

are: — Cod. Lat. 43 (from Hartmann Schedel's collection) f. 118, b. 

Cod. Windberg. 37, or Cod. Lat. 22,237, f. 168 b. Similarly in the 

oldest manuscripts of the chronicle of Otto in the Munich libraiy 

"the addition to the name of John VII. does not appear. These are 

Cod. Weihensteph. 61, or Lat. 21,561, which is of about the same 

date. Cod. Frising. 177, or Lat. 6,517. Cod. Scheftlarn. Lat. 17,1-4, 

in which the list of popes comes to an end with Hadiian IV., and 

thcrciorc irf also of the same date. 
2 



POPE JOAN. 



tion.i That is to say, Stephen, a French Dominican, 
born towards the close of the twelfth century, died in 
the year 1 261, in his work on the Seven Gifts of the 
Holy Spirit.2 which was written just about the middle 
of the thirteenth century, makes the first mention of 
Pope Joan, whom he asserts he has discovered in 
a chronicle. Now seeing that he refers with exactness 
to all the sources from which he has gathered together 
the collection of passages which contribute to his 

1 [He merely says] dicitur in chronicis." He means no more 
than one chronicle ; Chronica is constantly used ,in the plural as a 
title. Otherwise Stephen would naturally have added " variis" or 
" pluribus." 

2 It has never been printed. The whole, or portions of it, exist 
in the French libraries, one portion of it in the Munich library. 
Echard was the first to cite it at great length in his work, Sancti 
Thomse Summa Suo Auctori Vindicata, Paris, 1708 ; and again in the 
Scriptores Ordinis Prxdicatorum, pt. i. 

[The passage from Stephen de Bourbon as cited by Gieseler 
(ii. 31 ) from Quetif and Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Pradicatorum, 
i. 367, reads : Accidit autem, mirabilis audacia, imo insana, circa 
ann. Dom MC. [CM ?J ut dicitur in chronicis. Quaedam mulier 
literata, et m arte nondi (notandi ?) edocta, adsunto virili habitu, et 
virum sefingens, venit Romam,- et tam industria, quam literatura 
accepta, facta est notarius curiae, post diabolo procurante cardinalis, 
postea Papa. Haec impraegnata cum ascenderet peperit. Quod 
cum novisset Romana justitia, ligatis pedibus ejus ad pedes equi 
di.stracta est extra urbem, et ad dimidiam leucam a populo lapidata, 
et ubi fuit mortua, ibi fuit sepulta, et super lapidem super ea 
positum scriptus est versiculus : " Parce pater patrum papissae 
edere partum." The same story appears in an enlarged form in 
Martini Poloni (f 1278), Chron,, and here the passage is perhaps 
genuine, although it is also wanting in several MSS. H. B. S.] 



POPE JOAN. 15 

practical homiletic object, we can, at least with great 
probability, show from what chronicle he has obtain- 
ed this mention of Pope Joan. Among chroniclers he 
names Eusebius, Jerome, Bede, Odo, Hugo of St. 
Victor, the " Roman Cardinal," and John de Mailly, 
a Dominican. We may set aside all but the two last- 
The " Roman Cardinal" (or Cardinal Romanus (?) — 
there were several of this name, but none of them 
wrote a chronicle) is probably none other than the 
author of the Historia Miscella, or continuation of 
Eutropius, whom the Dominican, Tolomeo of Lucca, 
also quotes later on among his authorities as Paulus 
Diaconus Cardinalis ;^ but he cannot be distinguished 
with certainty. It remains then that the lost, or as 
yet undiscovered, chronicle of the Dominican Jean de 
Mailly,^ who, moreover, must have been a con- 
temporary of Stephen, is the only source to which 
the latter can have been indebted for his account of 
Pope Joan. And Jean de Mailly, we may be 
tolerably certain, got it from popular report. 

We can, therefore, consider it as established — that 
not until the year 1240 or 1250, was the myth about 
the woman-pope put into writing and transferred to 
works of history. Several decades more passed, 

1 Cf. Quotif et Echard Scriptores Ordinis Prsedicatorum, i.. 544. 

2 Oa him see the Histoire lilteraire de la France^ xviii., 532. 



i6 POPE JOAN. 

however, before it came actually into circulation and 
became really wide-spread. The chronicle of Jean de 
Mailiy seems to have remained in obscurity, for no 
one, with the exception of his brother Dominican, 
Stephen, notices it ; and even Stephen's large work — 
great as was its value, especially to preachers, on 
account of the quantity of examples which it contain- 
ed, was not possessed by very many, ^s is proved 
by the scarcity of existing manuscripts of it. The 
Speculum Morale, which bears the name of Vincent of 
Beauvais, was the chief cause of this. For this work ap- 
propriated most of the examples and instances given by 
Stephen, but was superior to Stephen's books both in 
convenience of arrangement and fulness of matter, 
and eclipsed it so completely, that the narrative 
about Pope Joan, in the form in which it appears 
in Stephen's work, is to be found nowhere else. 

The chronicle of Martinus Polonus has been the 
principal means of giving circulation to the myth. 
This book, whicih gives a synchronistic history of the 
popes and emperors in the form of a dry, mechanical, 
and utterly uncritical collection of biographical notes, 
exercised a most extraordinary influence on the 
chroniclers and historians from the beginning of the 
fourteenth century onwards, especially on their ways 
of thinking in the latter part of the Middle Ages. 



POPE JOAN. 17 

Wattenbach's^ statement, that Martinus Polonus 
became almost the exclusive historical instructor of 
the catholic world, is not an exaggeration. Of no 
other historical book is there such an inexhaustible 
number of manuscripts in existence as of this. All 
volumes of the Archiv fiir deiUsche GescJuchiskunde 
show this. And indeed the book was held in estima- 
tion in almost all countries alike, was translated into 
all languages, was continued over and over again, 
and still more frequently copied by later chroniclers. 
That the effect of such a book, utterly unhistorical 
and stuffed with fables, was to the last degree mis- 
chievous, so that (as Wattenbach says) the careful, 
thorough, and critical investigation of the history 
of the early Middle Ages, prosecuted with so much 
zeal during the twelfth century, was completely 
choked, or nearly so, by Martin's chronicle, cannot 
be denied. 

The position of the author could not fail to win for 
his history of the popes an amount of authority such 
as no other similar writing obtained. Troppau was 
his birth-place, the Dominican order his profession. 
He was for a long time the chaplain and penitentiary 
of the popes ; as such lived naturally at the papal 
court, followed, everywhere, the Curia, which was 

1 Deutsclilands Geschichisquellen, s. 426. 



i8 



POPE JOAN, 



then constantly on the move, and died [a.d. 1278I as 
archbishop designate of Gnesen. His book, therefore, 
was considered to a certain extent to be the official 
history of the popes, issuing from the Curia itself. 
And hence people accepted the history of Pope Joan 
also, which they found in Martinus Polonus, all the 
more readily and unsuspectingly. The form in which 
he gives the myth became the prevaiHng one ; and 
most authors have contented themselves with copy- 
ing the passage from his chronicle word for word. 
Nevertheless, Martin himself, as can be proved, knew 
nothing about Pope Joan, or, at any rate, said 
nothing about her. Not until several years after his 
death did attempts begin to be made to insert the 
myth into his book. It is no doubt correct that 
Martin himself prepared a second and later edition of 
his work, which reaches down to Nicolas III., 1277, 
while the first edition only goes down to Clement IV. 
(died 1268). But the second is exactly like the first 
in arrangement. Each pope, and each emperor on 
the opposite page, had as many lines assigned to him 
as he reigned years, and each page contained fifty 
lines, that is, embraced half a century. Hence, in the 
copies which kept to the original arrangement of the 
author, additions or insertions could only be made in 
those places where the account of a pope or emperor 



POPE JOAN. 19 

did not fill all the lines assigned to him, owing to the 
short period of his reign. But the insertion of a pope 
had been rendered impossible by Martin himself and 
all the copyists who kept to the plan of the book, 
by means of the detailed chronology, according to 
which every line had a date, and in the case of each 
pope and emperor the length of his reign was exactly 
stated. But for this same reason Pope Joan also, 
if she had originally had a place in his book, could 
not have been ejfaced, nor have been omitted from the 
copies which held fast to the* arrangement of the 
original. 

Pope Joan then does not occur in the eldest manu- 
scripts of Martinus. She is wanting especially in 
those which have kept to the exact chronological 
method of the author. Nor is the opinion tenable, 
that Martinus brought her into the latest edition 
of his book prepared by himself. That theory is con- 
tradicted by manuscripts, which come down to the 
time of Nicolas III., and, nevertheless, contain no 
trace of Pope Joan. Echard^ has already noticed 
several such manuscripts. The exquisite Alders- 
bach^ manuscript, now in the Royal Library at 

1 On this point see Quetif et Echard. Scriptores Ordinis Prse- 
dicatorum, 1. 367 ; and Lequien Oriens Chr, iii., 385. 

2 Aldersp. 161, fol. Pergam. 



20 



POPE JOAN, 



Munich, gives the same evidence. There are, 
however, manuscripts in which her history is written 
in the margin at the bottom of the sheet, or as a gloss 
at the side, i It was thence gradually, and one may 
add very violently, thrust in the text. This was done 
in various ways : either Benedict III., the successor of 
Leo, was struck out, and Pope Joan put in his place, 
as is the case in a Hamburgh codex reaching down to 
the year 1302. Or she is placed, usually by some 
later hand, without any date being given, as an 
addition or mere legend in the vacant space left after 
Leo IV. Or, lastly — merely in order to gain the neces- 
sary two years and a half for her reign — the whole 
chronological reckoning of the author is thrown into 
confusion ; either by assigning an earlier date than is 
correct to several of Leo's predecessors, and that as 
far back as the year 800 ; or by giving to individual 
popes fewer years than belong to them. This 
eagerness to interpolate the female pope in the book 
at all hazards — so to speak, — without shrinking from 
the most arbitrary alterations in the chronology 
in order to attain this object, is certainly somewhat 
astonishing. Just the very circumxStance which above 

1 In the Arch'v fur alters deutsche Geschichiskunde quotations 
from several of these are giveiij e. g. vii., 657. 

2 Archiv vi., 230. 



POPE JOAN. 



21 



all others conferred on Martin's book a certain 
amount of value, viz. the painstaking and continuous 
chronological reckoning line by line, has been 
sacrificed in several manuscripts,^ merely in order to 
make the insertion of Pope Joan possible ; or else 
only one year has been placed against the name of 
each pope, either in the margin or. in the text, 
in order to conceal the disagreement between the 
insertion of Pope Joan and the chronological plan of 
the author. 

It was in the period between 1278 and 1312 that 
the interpolation took place ; for Tolomeo of Lucca, 
who completed his historical work in the year 13 12, 
remarks^ that all the authorities which he had read 
placed Benedict III. next after Leo IV. ; Martinus 
Polonus was the only one who put Johannes Anglicus 
in between. By this means two facts are established ; 
first, the industrious collector Tolomeo knew of no 
writing in which a mention of Pope Joan was to 
be found, except the chronicle of Martinus; secondly, 
the copy of Martinus with which he was acquainted 
was one which had her already inserted, and that in 
the text. Had the account of her merely been written 

1 " Nulla chronologia, sed adest fabula," says Echard of soY^;rii5 
manuscripts of Martinus which he had seen, p. 369. 

2 But. Eccles., 16, 8. 



22 



POPE JOAN, 



alongside in the margin, this would undoubtedly 
have aroused Tolomeo's suspicions, and he would 
have noticed the fact in his own work. 

Another main vehicle for circulating the myth 
about the papess was the chronicle Flores Temporuntj 
which exists in numerous manuscripts under the 
names of Martinus Minorita, Herrmannus Januensis, 
and Herrmannus Gigas. It was printed by Eccard, 
and, in another form, by Meuschen ; and after that of 
Martinus Polonus, was the most widely circulated of 
all the later chronicles. Unlike Martinus Polonus, 
however, it appears to have come into general use 
only in Germany. It reaches down to 1290, and is in 
the main not much more than a compilation from the 
chronicle of Martinus Polonus, as the author himself 
states. According to the conjecture of Eccard and 
others, Martinus Minorita is the original author,^ and 
Herrmannus Januensis or Gigas the continuer^ of the 
chronicle down to the year 1349. Pertz,^ on the other 
hand, is of opinion that what is printed under the 
name of Martinus Minorita is only a poor extract 
from the work of Herrmannus Gigas, who brought 
his chronicle down to the year 1290, and died in 1336. 

1 Archiv der Gesellschaft fur deutsche Geschichtskunde, viii., 835. 

2 Archiv i., 402 ff. 

3 Achiv vii,, 115. 



POPE JOAN, 23 

The relation between the Minorite Martin and the 
Wilhelmite Herrmann of Genoa appears meanwhile 
to be this : — that the latter has copied the Minorite, 
with ^ many omissions and additions, but without 
mentioning him. Martin the Penitentiary — that is 
Martinus Polonus — is given as the main authority. 
It was from him, then, beyond all doubt, that the 
story about Pope Joan passed (embellished with 
additions) into chronicles of considerably later date ; 
for manuscripts in which it is wanting have not come 
within my knowledge. 

The story of Pope Joan has also been inserted in 
the so-called Anastasius 2 (the most ancient collection 
known of biographies of the popes), and in precisely 
the same form as that in which it exists in Martinus 
Polonus. The literal wording of the text does not 
allow the possibility that the story really formed any 

1 Bmns, in Gabler's Journal fUr theo^og. Lit. 1811, vol. vi., p. 88, 
etc. Bruns had a manuscript before him in Helmstadt, which was 
marked as a work of Herrmannus Minorita. But at the end of the 
document the author was correctly styled Herrmannus Ordinis S. 
Wilhelmi. 

2 [Anastasius, the Librarian of the Vatican, took part in a.d. 869 
in the eighth General Council at Constantinople, where his learning 
and knowledge of Latin and Greek were of great service to the 
papal legates. His celebrated Liber Pontificalis is a compilation of 
lives of the popes from S. Peter down to Nicolas I., first printed at 
Mayence in 1602. Only the lives of some of the popes of his own 
times can be regarded as his own composition.] 



24 POPE JOAN. 

part of tlie original text. The interpolation must 
have been made with the most foolish wantonness, or 
just as has been done in the Heidelberg manuscripts, 
by striking out Benedict III., and then inserting Joan 
in his place. In other copies she has been added by a 
later hand in the margin, at the side, or quite at the 
bottom of the page. 

The most natural supposition, and the one which 
Gabler^ also follows, seems then to be, that the 
papess passed from Martinus Polonus into the few, 
and very much later, manuscripts of Anastasius which 
contain it. Nevertheless, I am driven to the con- 
jecture that the myth was in the first instance added 
at the end of some copy of the collection of biogra- 
phies of the popes which bears the name of Anastasius. 
For it has long ago been remarked ^ that the life of 
Benedict III. in this collection is the work of a dif- 
ferent author from that of the lives immediately pre- 
ceding it, especially of the very detailed life of Leo 
IV. There must, therefore, beyond all doubt, have 
been copies which came to an end with Leo IV., 
whose biographer was obviously a contemporary. 
The notice of Pope Joan might then have been added 

1 Gabler's Kleinere theolog. Schriften, vol. i., p. 446. 

2 See Bahr, Geschichte der Rom. Literatur im KaroUng. Zeitalter, 
p. 269. 



POPE JOAN, 



25 



at the end by a later hand, and from thence have 
passed into the manuscripts of Martinus Polonus. 

One sees this from the catalogue of manuscripts 
which Vignoli gives at the beginning of his edition. 
The Cod. Vatic. 3764 reaches down to Hadrian IL, 
the Cod. Vatic. 5869 only down to Gregory II. ; the 
Cod. 629 to Hadrian I. ; others to John VIII., Nicolas 
I., Leo III., and so forth. In Cod. 3762, which comes 
down to the year 1142, the fable of the papess is 
added in later and smaller handwriting underneath 
in the margin. 

This conjecture, one must allow, is by no means 
easy to prove. But supposing it correct, we have then 
the simplest of all explanations for the interpolation 
of Pope Joan between Leo IV. and Benedict III., 
where she certainly has not the ^ slightest connection 
with the history of the time. Meanwhile, I find in 
Martinus himself reasons for this place being assigned 
to her, and the following two in particular. The first 
is a mere matter of chance, arising out of the me- 
chanical arrangement ; for Martinus did not know 

1 Leo IV. died July llth, 855. Benedict was forthwith [the 
same month] elected ; and, after the emperor had given his consent, 
was consecrated on 29th of September in the same year, the very 
day after the Emperor Lothair died. It is notorious that contem- 
poraries, such as Prudentius and Hinemar, notice that Benedict v.-as 
Leo s immediate successor, and a diploma of Benedict's dated as 
early as October 7th, 855 (Mansi Concill. xv., 113) is still extant. 



26 



POPE JOAN, 



how to fill up the eight lines which he was obliged to 
devote to the eight years of Leo's pontificate, so 
that the first lines of the page which contained the 
second half of the ninth century remained empty. 
Here, therefore, the interpolation could be managed 
without the slightest trouble. But there was a further 
reason in the nature of the story itself. For the 
extreme improbability that a woman should be pro- 
moted to the highest ecclesiastical office, and be 
chosen by all as pope, was explained in the myth by 
her great intellectual attainments. She surpassed 
every one in Rome, so it was said, in learning. 
Naturally then, as soon as a definite historical place 
had to be assigned to her (the popular form of the 
myth had not troubled itself with fixed dates), a 
tolerably early period — at any rate, one anterior to 
the time of Gregory VI 1. — had to be chosen for her. 
For this, however, they were obliged to fall back on 
a period in which there was only a single instance 
known of a man being elected to the papacy on 
account of his preeminent knowledge. Since Gregory 
the Great there had been no pope who was really 
very remarkable for learning. In the four centuries 
between John VI., 701, and Gregory VI L, this very 
Leo IV. is the only one whom Martinus notices in 
particular as a man who " divinarum scripturarum 



POPE JOAN, 



27 



extitit ferventlssimus scrutator," one who already, in 
the monastery [of St. Martin] to which his parents had 
sent him for purposes of study, became remarkable 
for his learning no less than for his mode of life, and 
on this account also was unanimously ^ elected pope 
by the Romans after the death of Sergius. On that 
occasion, then, it was intellectual attainment which 
influenced the votes of the Romans ; and therefore it 
might happen that a woman, whose sex was not 
known, could be chosen as pope by the Romans, 
because of her intellectual superiority. Now the inter- 
polated Martinus speaks of Joan in much the same 
terms as of Leo ; " in diversis scientiis ita profecit, 
" ut nuUus sibi par inveniretur ; " and, " quum in urbe 
vita et scientia magnae opinionis esset, in papam 
" concorditer eligitur." And hence in Martinus Polo- 
nus, who speaks in this manner of no other ^ pope in 
that century, the place assigned to Pope Joan was 
that immediately after Leo IV., whom she resembled 

1 [Sergius died Jan. 27th. Leo IV. was forthwith elected, and 
consecrated on April 10th, without waiting even for the leave of the 
sovereign, not as denying his authority, but because of the pressing 
fear of the Saracens, who had ventured up the Tiber, and plundered 
the Basilica of St. Peter at the end of 846. See Baxmann, PolUik 
der Pdpste, vol. i., p. 352. This fear of the Saracens may have had 
something to do with the unanimity of the electors.] 

2 For Gerbcrt (Sylvester II.) owed his promotion, 999-1003, ac- 
cording to Martinus, not to his great learning, but to the devil. 



28 



POPE JOAN, 



in this particular. And since every one took the 
work of Martinus as their authority, she retained this 
position. 

It is at the stage when the myth was just beginning 
to gain circulation, and was still received with suspi- 
cion on many sides, that the passages on the subject 
in the Historical Mirror of Van Maerlant and in 
Tolomeo of Lucca come in. Maerlant's Dutch chro- 
nicle is in verse, and is mainly taken from Vincent of 
Beauvais, but with additions from other sources. 
Maerlant says moreover (about the year 1283), " I do 
" not 1 feel clear or certain whether it is fable or fact ; 
" but in the chronicles of the popes it is not usually 
" found." So also a manuscript list of the popes 
down to John XXII. (13) : " Et^ in paucis chronicis 
" invenitur." 

One of the first who took the story of Pope Joan 
from the interpolated Martinus Polonus was Geof- 
froi de Courlon, a Benedictine of the Abbey of St. 
Pierre le Vif at Sens, whose chronicle, ^ a somewhat 
rough compilation, reaches down to 1295. 

1 Spiegel Historical^ uitgeg. door de Maatschappij der nederl. 
letterk. Leyden, 1857, iii., 220. 

2 This is appended to the manuscript of the Otia Imperialia by Ger- 
vasius in Leyden. Wensing, de Pausin Johanna^ p. 9. 

3 Notices et Extraits, ii., 16. He adds, moreover, " Unde dicitur 
quod Romani in consuetudinem traxerunt prohare sexus electi per 
foramen cathedrae lapidea." — See Hist. Lit. de France, xxi., 10. 



POPE JOAN, 29 

Next comes the Dominican Bernard Guidonis, in 
his unprinted Flores Chronicorum, and also (in the 
year 13 11) in his now printed history ^ of the popes. 
He inserts Johannes Teutonicus (not Ancrlicus, there- 
fore, according to him) natione Maguntinus, together 
with the whole fable about Pope Joan, keeping faith- 
fully to his authority, Martinus Polonus. 

About the same period another Dominican, Leo of 
Orvieto, contributed to the circulation of the fable, 
by receiving it into his history of the popes and 
emperors, which reached down to Clement V. [1305]. 
In his case also, Martinus Polonus is the source from 
which he draws in this particular, as also in his whole 
book.2 

Now follow in the first half of the fourteenth 
century the Dominican John of Paris, Siffrid of 
Meissen, Occam the Minorite (who turned the story 
of Pope Joan to account in his controversy with John 
XXII.), the Greek Barlaam, the English Benedictine 
Ranulph Higden, the Augustin^ Amalrich Augerii, 
Boccaccio, and Petrarch.^ 

1 Maii Spicil. Rom. vi., 202. 

2 In the third volume of Lami's Delicise Erudiiorum, Florent . 
1732, p, 143. 

3 Chronica delle Vite de' Pontefici, &c., Veuetia, 1507, f. LV. He is 
here called Giovanni d'Anglia, and the dates are advanced two 
years, so that Benedict III. is placed in the year 857 (instead of 



30 POPE JOAN. 

A chronicle of the popes by Aimery of Peyrat, 
Abbot of Moissac, written in the year 1399, ^^.s 
Johannes Anglicus in the Hst of popes, with the 
remark : Some^ say that this pope was a woman." 

The Dominican Jacobe de Acqui,^ who wrote about 
the year 1370, inserts the name without this remark, 
but with the extraordinary statement that this ponti- « 
ficate lasted nineteen years. 

Of course people in general regarded the cir- 
cumstance as to the last degree disgraceful to the 
Roman See, and, indeed, to the whole Church. The 
woman-pope had reigned for two years and a half, 
had performed a vast number of functions, all of 
which were now null and void ; and, added to all this, 
there was the scandal of her giving birth to a child in 
the open street. It was scarcely possible to conceive 
anything more to the dishonor of the chair of the 
Apostle, or, indeed, of the whole of Christendom. 
What mockery must not this story excite among the 
Mohammedans ! 

As early as the close of the thirteenth, or beginning 

855), and Nicolas I. in 859 (instead of 858). [Benedict III. died 
early in 858 — April 7tli ; so that the difference between that and the 
end of 859 would not be far short of two years.] 

1 Notices et Extraits vi., 82. 

2 Monum, Hist. Fatrise, Scriptores^ iii., 1524. 



POPE JOAN, 31 

of the fourteenth century, GeofFroi de Courlon in- 
troduces the story with the heading Deceptio EcclesicB 
RomancB. 

Maerlant^ says sorrowfully : — 

Alse die paves Leo was doot — 
Ghesciede der Kerken grote scame.'* 

" Johanne la Papesse," says 2 Jean le Maire, in the 
year 15 11, "fist un grand esclandre a la Papalite." 

All state that since that time the popes always 
avoid that street, so as not to look upon the scene of 
the scandal. 

Now, when we consider that, according to the 
declaration of the Dominican Tolomeo of Lucca, down 
to the year 13 12, the story was extant nowhere, 
except in certain copies of Martinus Polonus ; that 
already innumerable lists of the popes, in their 
chronological order, were in existence, in none of 
which was there any trace of the fernale pope to be 
found, — the eagerness, which suddenly meets us at 
the close of the thirteenth century, to make the fable 

1 Als der Papst Leo war todt — 

Geschah der Kirche grosse Schame — ^" 

After Pope Leo was dead 

A great scandal rose in the church.] 

2 In the Traits de la Diference des Schismes et des Conciles de 
VEglise^ part iii., f. 2. 



32 POPE JOAN. 

pass muster as history, and to smuggle it into the 
manuscripts, is certainly very astonishing. The author 
of the Histoire Lit. de Fraitce has good reason for 
saying, " Nous^ ne saurions nous expliquer comment il 
" se fait que ce soit precisement dans les rangs de 
" cette fidele milice du saint-siege que se rencontrent 
" les propagateurs les plus naifs, et peut-etre les inven- 
" teurs, d'une histoire si injurieuse a la papaute." 
Undoubtedly the thing emanated principally from 
those otherwise most devoted servants of the Roman 
See, the Dominicans^ and the Minorites: It was 
certainly they, especially the former of the two, who 
were the first to multiply the copies of Martinus 
Polonus to such an extent, and thus spread the fable 
everywhere. The time at which this took place 
meanwhile solves the enigma. It was in the reign of 
Boniface VII L, who was not favourably disposed to 

1 xxi., p, 10. 

2 [A serious rupture between Rome and the friars took place 
Tinder Innocent IV. The University of Paris, alarmed at the hold 
which the monks were getting, especially on the professorship, 
decreed that no religious order should hold more than one of the 
theological chairs. The Dominicans appealed to the pope. Inno- 
cent decided against them, and within a few days died. His death 
was openly attributed to their prayers — " quia impossible erat 

multorum preces non audiri." Hence the well-known saying, 
*' From the litanies of the friars, good Lord, deliver us."J 



POPE JOAN, 



33 



the two orders, and whose whole policy^ displeased 
them. We see this in the unfavourable judgments 
which the Dominican historians formed respecting 
him, and in the attitude which they assumed at the 
outbreak of the strife between him and Philip the 
Fair. We notice that from this time, which was in 
general a crisis for the waning power of the popes, 
historians among the monastic orders mention and 
describe with a sort of relish scandals in the history 
of the popes. 

In the fifteenth century scarcely a doubt is sug- 
gested. Quite at the beginning of the century the 
bust of Pope Joan was placed in the cathedral at 
Sienna along with the busts of the other popes, and 
no one took offence at it. The church of Sienna in 
the time that followed gave three popes to the Roman 

1 [This treatment of the English Franciscans made this not un- 
natural. The Franciscans, in direct contradiction to their vow of 
mendicancy, had gradually become very wealthy. The pope alone 
could free them from their rule. The English Minorites offered to 
deposit forty thousand ducats with certain bankers, as the price of 
permission to hold property. Boniface played with the monks till 
the money was paid, then absolved the bankers from their obliga- - 
tion to pay back money which mendicants ought never to have 
owned, and appropriated it as "res nullius" to his own uses. He 
thus made implacable enemies of the most popular and intellectual 
order in Europe. When Philip appealed severally to all the 
monastic orders in France, all the Franciscans, and with them the 
Dominicans, Hospitallers, and Templars, took their stand by him 
against the pope.] 



34 



POPE JOAN. 



See, — Pius II., Pius III., and Marcellus II. Not one 
of them ever thought of having the scandal removed. 
It was not till two centuries later, that, at the pressing 
demand of pope Clement VIII., 1 592-1605, Joan was 
metamorphosed into pope Zacharias. ^ When Huss at 
the council of Constance supported ^ his doctrine by- 
appealing to the case of Agnes, who became Pope 
Joan, he rnet with no contradiction from either side. 
Even the Chancellor Gerson himself turned to account 
the circumstance of the woman-pope as a proof 
that the Church could err^ in matters of fact. On 
the other hand the Minorite Johann de Rocha, in a 
treatise written at the Council of Constance, uses the 
case of Johannes Maguntinus to show how dangerous 
it is to make the duty of obedience to the Church 
depend upon the personal character of the pope. ^ 

1 Lequien, Oriens Christianus, iii., 392, 

2 That is to say, he tried to prove that the Church could get on 
very well for a locg time without any pope at all, because during 
the whole reign of Agnes, namely, two years and a half, it had had 
no real pope. — L'Enfant, Ilistoire du Concile de Constance^ ii., 334. 
In his work De Ecclesia also, Huss Comes back with delight to the 
woman-pope, whose name was Agnes, and who was called Johannes 
Anglicus. She is to him a striking proof that the Roman Church 
has in no way remained spotless : " Quomodo ergo ilia Romana 
*' Ecclesia, ilia Agnes, Johannes Papa cum collegio semper immacu- 
"lata permansit, qui peperit ?" 

3 In the speech which he made at Tarascon before Benedict XIII. 
in the year 1403. Opera, ed. Dupin, ii., 71. 

4 In Dupin's edition of the writings of Gerson, v. 456. 



POPE JOAN. ^ 35 

Heinrich Korner, a Dominican of Lubeck, 1402 to 
1437, not only himself received the story about the 
woman-pope in its usual form into his chronicle, but 
stated in addition that his predecessor, the Dominican 
Henry of Herford (about 1350), whom he had often 
copied, had purposely concealed the circumstance, in 
order that the laity might not be scandalised by 
reading that such an error had taken place in the 
Church, which assuredly, as the clergy taught, was 
guided by the Holy Spirit. ^ 

The matter was now generally set forth as an 
indubitable fact, and the scholastic theologians en- 
deavoured to accommodate, themselves to it, and to 
arrange their church system and the position of the 
popes in the Church in accordance with it. -^neas 
Sylvius, afterwards pope Pius H., had however replied 
to the Taborites, that the story was nevertheless not 
certain. But his contemporary, the great upholder of 
papal despotism, cardinal Torrecremata, 2 accepts it 
as notorious, that a woman was once regarded by all 
Catholics as pope, and thence draws the following 
conclusion : that, whereas God had allowed this to 

1 Ap. Eccard., ii., 442 

2 " Quum ergo constet quod aliquando mulier a cimctis Catholicis 
" putabatur Papa, non est incredibile quod aliquando hcereticus 
" habeatur pro Papa, licet verus Papa non sit.' — Summa de Eccleda, 
edit. Yenet., p. 394. 



36 



POPE JOAN. 



happen, without the whole constitution of the Church 
being thrown into confusion, so it might also come to 
pass, that a heretic or an infidel should be recog- 
nised as pope ; and, in comparison with the fact of a 
female pope, that would be the smaller difficulty of 
the two. 

St. Antoninus, belonging, like Torrecremata, to the 
middle of the fifteenth century, and like him a 
Dominican, ^ avails himself of the Apostle's words 
respecting the inscrutability of the divine counsels 
in connection with the supposed fact of a female 
pope, and declares that the Church was even then 
not without a Head, namely Christ, but that bishops 
and priests ordained by the woman must certainly be 
re-ordained. 

The Dominican order, whose members chiefly 
contributed to spread the fable everywhere, possessed 
in their strict organization and their numerous li- 
braries the means of discovering the truth. The 
General of the order had merely to command that 
the copies of Martinus Polonus, and the more ancient 
lists of the popes, of which there were quantities in 
existence in the monasteries of the order, should once 
for all be examined and compared together. But 
people preferred to believe what was most incredible 

1 Summa Hist^ lib. 16, p. 2, c. 1, § 1, 



POPE JOAN, 37 

and most monstrous. Not one of these men, of 

course, had ever seen, or heard, that a woman had 

for years been public teacher, priest, and bishop, 

without being detected, or that the birth of a child 

had ever taken place in the public street. But that 

in Rome these two things once took place together^ 

in order to disgrace the papal dignity — this people 

believed with readiness. 

Martin le Franc, provost of Lausanne, about 1450, 

and secretary to the popes Felix V. and Nicholas V., 

in his great French poem, Le Champion des Dames, 

celebrated Pope Joan at length. First we have his 

astonishment, that such a thing should have been 

permitted to take place. 

" Comment endura Dieu, comment 
Que femme ribaulde et prestresse 
Eut I'Eglise en gouvernement ?'* 

It would have been no wonder had God come down 

to judgment, when a woman ruled the world. But now 

the defender steps forward and makes apology — 

" Or laissons les peches, disans, 
Qu'elle etoit clergesse lettree, 
Quand devant les plus suffisants 
De Rome eut I'issue et I'entree. 
Encore te peut etre montree 
Mainte Preface que dicta, 
Bien et saintement accoustree 
Ou en la foy point n'hesita."! 

1 Ap. Oudin, Comm. de Scr. Eccl.^ iii. 2466. 
4 



38 POPE JOAN. 

She had, therefore, composed many quite orthodox 
prefaces for the mass. 

It was not until the second half of the fifteenth 
century that the story came into the hands of the 
Greeks. Welcome as the occurrence of such a thing 
would have been to a Cerularius and like-minded op- 
ponents of the papal chair in Constantinople, no one 
had as yet mentioned it, until Chalcocondylas, in the 
history of his time, in which he describes the mode of 
electing a pope, mentions also the fiction of an 
examination as to sex, and apropos of that relates 
the catastrophe of Pope Joan ; an occurrence which, 
as he remarks, could only have taken place in the 
West, where the clergy do not allow their beard 
to grow.^ It is in him that we get the outrageous 
feature added to the story, that the child was born 
just as the woman was celebrating High Mass, and 
was seen by the assembled congregation. ^ 

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, says the 
Roman writer Cancellieri, the romance about Pope 

1 De Rebus Turcicis, ed. Bekker, Bonn, 1843, p. 303. 

2 'Qig e'lg r^v dvc'iav d^tKero, yewfjaai re. rd iracdlov Kara TTjv dvffiav koI 
b^O^vac VTzb rov Tiaov. 

The cleric, who examines the sex of the newly-elected, cries out 
with a loud voice : apprjv yfTiv korlv 6 dtoivoTTjg^ I. c, p. 303. Bar- 
laam, who had mentioned the fahle as early as the fourteenth 
century, lived in Italy. 



POPE JOAN. 39 

Joan circulated widely in all chronicles which were 
written and copied in Italy, and even under the very 
eyes of Rome. ^ Thus it appears in print in Rico- 
baldo's Italian chronicle of the popes, which FiHppo 
de Lignamine dedicated to pope Sixtus IV. in 1474- 
So also in the history of the popes by the Venetian 
priest Stella. ^ For a long time, and even as late as 
1548 and 1550, it found a place in numerous Roman 
editions of the Mirahilia Urbis Romce, ^ which was a 
sort of guide for pilgrims and strangers. 

Felix Hemmerlin, Trithemlus, Nauclerus, Albert 
Krantz, Coccius Sabellicus, Raphael of Volterra, Joh. 
Fr. Pico di Mirandola, the Augustine Foresti of 
Bergamo, Cardinal Domenico Jacobazzi, Hadrian of 
Utrecht, afterwards pope Hadrian VL, — Germans, 
French, Italians, Spaniards, all appeal to the story, 
and interweave it with their theological disquisitions ; 
or, like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, rejoice that the 
tenets of the canonists about the inerrancy of the 

1 Storia de' solenni possessi. Eome, 1802, p. 238. ^ 

2 VitaPaparum, K. Basil, 1507, f. E. 2. 

3 Other old editions of this strangers' guide to Eome have the 
title — Indulgently Ecclesiarum Urbis Komse. The circumstance about 
the woman-pope is found in all of them ; and for well-nigh eighty 
3^ears no one in Eome ever thought of having the scandal expurga- 
ted from a work, which was constantly reprinted, and was put into 
the hands of every new-comer, [A reprint has lately been publish- 
ed at Berlin, 1869, edited by Parthey.] 



40 POPE JOAN. 

Church had come to such glaring shame m the 
deception of the woman-pope, and that this woman, 
in the two years and a half of her reign, had ordained 
priests and bishops, administered sacraments, and 
performed all the other functions of a pope ; and that 
all this had, nevertheless, remained as valid 'n the 
Church. Even John, Bishop of Chiemsee, introduces 
Agnes and her catastrophe as a proof that the 
popes were sometimes under the influence of evil 
spirits. 1 Platina, who thought the story rather sus- 
picious, nevertheless would not omit it from his 
history of the popes (about 1460), because nearly 
every one maintained its truth. 2 Aventin in Ger- 
many, and Onufrio Panvinio in Italy, were the first 
to shake the general infatuation. But still in the 
year 1575 the Minorite Rioche, in his chronicle, 
opposes the certainty of the collected Church to the 
hesitating statements of Platina and Carranza. ^ 

In order to arrive at the causes of the origin and 
development of the myth, let us now proceed to 
dissect it. 

Originally the wornan-pope was nameless. The 
first accounts of her, in Stephen de Bourbon, and 

1 Onus Ecclesix, 1531, cap. 19, § 4. 

2 " Ne obstinate nimium et pertinaciter omisisse yidear, quod fe^ 
omnes affirmant." 

3 Chronique. Paris, 1576, f. 230. 



POPE yOAA\ 41 

in the Compilatio Chroitologica in Pistorms' collection, 
know nothing as yet of a Joan. In the latter 
authority we read : " fuit et alius pseudo papa, cujus 
*' nomen et anni ignorantur, nam mulier erat." Her 
own name was not discovered till somewhat late — 
about the end of the fourteenth century. She was 
called Agnes, under which name she was a very im- 
portant and useful personage, especially with John 
Huss ; or Gilberta, ^ as others would have it. For the 
pope a name was found at an early stage ; people took 
the most common one — ^John. There had already 
been seven of this name before 855, and in the period 
during which the myth was spreading, the number 
reached one and twenty. 

Much the same thing happened as to the time at 
which she was supposed to have lived. The myth 
while still in its popular form of course did not touch 
upon this question. But the first authority who 
relates it at once gives it a date also. The event, says 
Stephen de Bourbon, took place about the year iioo. 
He places it therefore (and this is very remarkable) 
at the very time in which we have the first mention of 
the use of the pierced chair at the enthronement 
of the new pope. How people in general came after- 

2 [Besides Agnes, Gilberta, or Gerberta and Joanna, she is also 
called in various authors Margaret, Isabel, Dorothy, and Jutta. j 



42 POPE JOAN. 

wards to assign the year 855 as her date, has been 
already explained. 

Stephen de Bourbon knows nothing up to his time 
of England, Mayence, or Athens. The woman is as 
yet no great scholar or public teacher, but only a 
clever scribe or secretary (artem notandi edocta), 
who thus becomes the notary of the Curia, then 
cardinal, and then pope. A century later, in Amal- 
ricus Augerii ^ all this is fantastically enlarged upon 
and coloured. At Athens she becomes by careful 
study a very subtle reasoner. While there she hears 
of the condition and fame of the city of Rome, goes 
thither and becomes, not a notary, as Stephen says, 
but a professor, 2 attracts many and noble pupils, 
Hves at the same time in the greatest honour, is 
celebrated everywhere for her mode of life no less 
than for her learning, and hence is unanimously 
elected pope. She continued some time longer in 
her honourable and pious mode of life ; but later on, 
too much good living made her voluptuous, she 

1 Ap. Eccard, ii., 1607. 

2 Even great teachers, sajs Jakob von Konigshofen (Chronicle, p. 
179), were eager to become her pupils, for she had the chief of the 
schools in Eome. The papal secretary, Dietrich von Niem (about 
A.D. 1413), professes to give the very school in which she taught, 
viz., that of the Greeks, in which St, Augustine also taught. 



POPE JOAN. 43 

yielded to the temptations of the Evil One, and was 
seduced by one of her confidants. 

Particularly astonishing is the disagreement as to the 
way -in which the catastrophe took place. Three or 
four versions of it exist. According to the first, as we 
find it in Stephen de Bourbon, it appears that she 
was with child at the time of her election to the 
papacy, and the denouement took place during the 
procession as she was going up to the Lateran 
palace. ^ The Roman tribunal condemned her at 
once to be tied by the feet to the feet of a horse, and 
dragged out of the city, whereupon the populace 
stoned her to death. In this version of the story, 
however, Stephen stands quite alone. The usual 
narrative, as it has passed from the interpolated 
Martinus Polonus into later authors, makes her, after 
a quiet reign of more than two years, give birth to a 
child in the street during a procession, die at once, 
and forthwith be buried on the very spot. Boccaccio 
is quite different from this again. According to him 
all takes place tolerably quietly; there is no death, 
the enthroned priestess merely sheds a few tears, and 
then retires into private hfe. Ex apice pontificatus 

1 " Quum ascenderet," i.e., palatium, as we have it in the descrip- 
tion of the coronation of Paschal II. ; — " ascendensque palatium." 
Ap. Murator. SB. Hal. iii., i. 354. 



44 



POPE JOAN, 



dejecta se in misellam evasisse mulierculam quere- 
batur." And again : " A patribus in tenebras 
exteriores abjecta cum fletu misella abiit." ^ 

The attitude which Boccaccio assumed with regard 
to the episode of the female pope, which was just the 
kind of thing to please a man of his turn of mind, is 
particularly remarkable. In his Zibaldone^ which he 
wrote about the year 1350, he included a short 
chronicle of the popes, which according to his own 
confession, was entirely borrowed from the Chronica 
Martiniafia. ln this the female pope is not mentioned ; 
without doubt because he did not find her in his 
copy of Martinus Polonus. On the other hand, he 
has inserted her in two later writings, 2 De casibus 
virorum et feminarum illustrium, and De mulieribus 
Claris^ and has pictured the whole with the enjoy- 
ment which was to be expected from the author 
of the Decamerone. His narrative, however, differs 
essentially from the usual version according to 

1 In tlie Fragmentum Hist. Autoris Incerti in TJrstis. P, ii., p. 82, 
•wliich says that King Theodoric killed " Johanna Papa" at Eome 
along with Boethius and Symmachus, Johanna is merely a mistake 
of some copyist for Johanne. [No version of the myth of Pope Joan 
places her as early as this — 524, 525. John I. was pope precisely at 
this period 523 to 526.] 

2 To speak more exactly, he has related the story twice over in 
the same work, for the two writings mentioned really make up only 
one work. 



POPE JOAN. 45 

Martinus ; and seeing that it agrees with no other 
known version, it would appear that Boccaccio has 
taken it directly from popular tradition (where it 
would naturally assume very various forms), and 
worked it up. He knows the length of her pontificate 
with the greatest exactitude : two years, seven months, 
and a day or two. Her original name he does not 
know : " Quod proprium fuerit nomen vix cognitum 
** est. Esto sunt, qui dicant fuisse Gilibertam." 

These fourteenth century witnesses are of no very 
great importance, for they one and all of them merely 
copied the interpolated passage in Martinus Polonus, 
often with scarcely the alteration of a word. On 
the other hand the recently published Eulogium 
Historiarum of a monk of Malmesbury, of the year 
1366, has a peculiar form of the story to be found 
nowhere else, although the author in other places 
borrows freely from Martinus Polonus, The girl 
is born in Mayence, and sent by her parents to male 
teachers to receive instruction in the sciences. With 
one of these, who was a very learned man, she falls in 
love, and goes with him in man's attire to Rome. 
Here, because she surpassed every one in knowledge, 
she was made cardinal by pope Leo. When, as pope, 
she gives birth to a child during the procession, she 
is merely deposed. This version, therefore, would 



46 



POPE JOAN. 



come nearest to the description given by Boccaccio. 
It knows nothing of the journey to Athens. ^ 

The catastrophe appears somewhat further spun 
out in a manuscript chronicle of the abbots of 
Kempten. There we are told that " the Evil Spirit 
" came to this Pope John, who was a woman, and 
" afterwards was with child, and said, * Thou pope, 
" * who wouldest be a Father with the other Fathers 

' here, thou shalt show publicly when thou bringest 
" * forth that thou art a woman-pope ; therefore will I 
" ' take thee body and soul to myself and to my com- 
" ' pany.' " 2 

Another less severe and uncompromising finale 
was however attempted. By a revelation or an angel 
she was allowed to choose, whether she would suffer 
shame on earth or eternal damnation hereafter. She 
chose the former, and the birth of her child and her 
own death in the open street was the consequence.^ 

The story of the papess once believed, many other 
fables attached themselves to it. It was through the 
special aid of the devil, we are told, that she rose to 

1 Eulogium, Chronicon ah orhe condito usque ad annum 1366 ; 
edited by Frank Scott Haydon. Lond. 1858, t. I, 

2 Ap. Wolf, Lection. Memorab., ed. 1671, p. 177. 

3 So in the Urbis Eomse Mirabilia, a work frequently printed 
in Rome during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Then in Hem- 
merlin, pp. 1597, f. 99, and in a German chronicle of Cologne. 



POPE JOAN. 



47 



the dignity of pope, and thereupon wrote a book 
on necromancy. ^ Formerly there was a greater 
number of Prefaces in the missal. The reduction in 
number which took place afterwards with regard 
to those whose author and purpose were unknown, 
was explained by the supposition, that Pope Joan 
had composed those which were struck out. ^ 

Now, how is the first origin of the myth to be 
explained } Four circumstances have contributed to 
the production and elaboration of the fable : — i. The 
use of a pierced seat at the institution of a newly 
elected pope. 2. A stone with an inscription on it, 
which people supposed to be a tombstone. 3. A 
statue found on the same spot, in long robes, which 
were supposed to be those of a woman. 4. The 
custom of making a circuit in processions, whereby a 
street which was directly in the way was avoided. 

In one street in Rome stood two objects, which 
were very naturally supposed to be connected, — a 
statue with the figure of a child or small boy, and a 
monum^ental stone with an inscription. In addition 

1 Tiraquell, de Leg. Matrim.ed. Basil., 1561, p. 298. 

2 Thus, in an Oxford manuscript of Martinus Polonus we read : — 
" Hie (Johannes Anglicus) primus post Ambrosium multas pre- 
" fationes miss arum dicitur composuisse, qute modo omnes sunt 
" interdictce." Ap. Maresium, Johanna Fapissa Restit.^ p. 19. So 
also the above-mentioned Martin le^ Franc. 



48 POPE JOAN. 

to this came the circumstance, that solemn and state 
processions made a circuit round this street. The 
statue is said to have had mascuhne rather than 
feminine features ; but certain information on this 
point is wanting, for Sixtus V. had it removed. The 
figure carried a palm-branch, and was supposed to 
represent a priest with a serving boy, or some heathen 
divinity. But the long robes and the addition of the 
figure of the boy to the group, created a notion 
among the people that it was a mother with her child. 
The inscription was then made use of to explain the 
statue, and the statue to explain the inscription, the 
pierced chair and the avoiding of the street served to 
confirm the explanation. This piece of sculpture 
was not (as has been maintained) first mentioned by 
Dietrich von Niem in the fifteenth century ; but 
Maerlant says, as early as 1283, i, e., at the time of 
the first circulation of the myth : — 

«♦ En daer leget soe, als wyt lesen 
Noch also up ten Steen ghehouwen, 
Dat men ane daer mag scouwen." 

The myth now sought, and soon found, further 
circumstances with v/hich to connect itself. The 
enigmatical inscription on a monumental stone which 
stood on the spot, and which hitherto no one had 
been able to interpret, became all at once clear to the 



POPE JOAN. 49 

Romans. It referred to the female pope and the 
catastrophe cf the denouement. 

The stone was set up by one of those priests of 
Mithras who bore the title "Pater Patrum," appa- 
rently as a memorial of some specially solemn sacrifice ; 
for the worship of Mithras from the third century of 
the Christian era onwards was a very favourite one in 
Rome and very prevalent, until in the year 378 the 
worship was forbidden and the grotto of Mithras 
destroyed. 

The earliest notice of the stone with the inscription, 
which was supposed to be the tombstone of the 
female pope, is to be found in Stephen de Bour- 
bon. According to him the inscription ran thus, — 

" Parce Pater Patrum papissae prodere partum." 

Now without doubt it did not stand so in as many 
words. But " Pap." or " Pare. Pater Patrum " followed 
by " P. P. P." was certainly the reading ; an abbrevia- 
tion for "propria pecunia posuit." 

" Pater Patrum " appears constantly on monuments 
as the title of a priest of the Mithras ^ mysteries. 
In this case^ probably, the name of the priest of 

1 Conf. Orelli, InscripUonum Latinarum Ampl. Coll. 1848, 1933, 

2343, 2344, 2352. 

5 



50 POPE JOAN. 

Mithras was Papirius. ^ The remaining letters may- 
have become illegible. 

The problem therefore now was to interpret the 
three " P's." 

One reading was, 

" Farce Pater Patrum papissae prodere partum 2 
or as others supposed, 

" Papa Pater Patrum papissse pandito partum ; " 
or, according to another explanation still better, 
*' Papa Pater Patrum peperit papissa papellum." 
Thus was the riddle of the inscription solved, and the 
myth confirmed in connection with the statue and the 
pierced chair. The stone had turned out to be the 
tombstone of the unhappy Pope Joan. ^ 

The verse, however, especially in its fir^t and 
second form, was altogether a most extraordinary 
one for an epitaph. There must be spmething more 
to account for it, and, accordingly, the myth was soon 

1 For several inscriptions with the abbreviation P. a P., see Orelli, 
ii., 25. 

2 This is the oldest interpretation as given by Stephen de 
Bourbon; see Echard, S. Thoms& Summa suo Aiiciori Vindicata^ p. 
568. 

3 Hence the most ancient witness, Stephen de Bourbon, says 
expressly: "Ubi fuit mortua, ibi fuit sepulta, et super lapidem 

super ea positum scriptus est versiculus, etc." — -Ap. Echard., I c, 
p. 568. / 



POPE JOAN. 51 

enlarged. Tt was reported that Satan, who of course 
knew the secret of the papess, had addressed her in 
the words of the verse in a full consistory.^ That, 
however, did not seem a very satisfactory explanation ; 
and so the supposed epitaph was altered and enlarged, 
— and the story at last ran thus : — that the papess, 
while exorcising a man possessed by a devil, had 
asked him when the unclean spirit that dwelt in him 
would leave him, and it had mockingly answered — • 

" Papa Pater Patrum papissse pandito partum, 

Et tibi nunc edam (or dicam) de corpora quando recedam." ^ 

Other instances have occurred of an unintelligible 
inscription being explained by a story ^ being attached 
to it. Thus the chronicles, since the time of Beda, 
declare that an inscription had been found at Rome 
with the six letters : — 

"R. R. R. F. F. F." 
According to other instances of abbreviations in in- 
scriptions, this can at any rate mean — 

" Ruderibus rejectis Rufus Festus fieri fecit." 

1 So tlie Chronica S. ^gidii, ap. Leibnitz SS. Brunsvic, iii., ESO, 
The Chronicon of Engelhusius (Leibnitz, ii., 1065) makes the edl 
spirit in the air shout out the verse at the birth of the child during 
the procession. 

2 So, for instance, the Chronicle of Hermannus Gygas, p. 94, 

3 [Compare the famous verse about Pope Sylvester II. — 
" Scandit " ab R. Gerbertus in R, post papa viget R," p. 268.] 



52 POPE JOAN. 

But people constructed out of it the prophecy of an 
ancient Sibyl respecting the destruction of Rome, 
and interpreted — 

" Roma Ruet Romuli Ferro Flammaque Fameque." 

While the inscription on the stone occupied more 
especially the clergy and the more educated among 
the laity, and stimulated them to attempt explana- 
tions of it, the imaginative powers of the populace 
were chiefly excited by the seat which stood in a 
public place, and was always to be seen by every one, 
on which every newly-elected pope, in accordance 
with traditional custom, took his seat. 

From the time of Paschal II. in the year 1099, we 
fmd mention of the custom that, at the solemn 
procession to the Lateran palace, the new pope should 
sit down on two ancient pierced seats made of stone. 
They were called " porphyreticcs,'' because the stone 
of which they were made was of a bright red kind. 
They dated from the times of ancient Rome, and had 
formerly, it appears, stood in one of the public baths ; 
and had thence come into the oratory of S. Sylvester 
near the Lateran.^ Here then it was usual for the pope 
first to sit on the right-hand seat, while a girdle from 
which hung seven keys and seven seals was put round 

1 Montfaucon, Diar. Ital.^ p. 137. 



POPE JOAN. 

him. 1 At the same time a staff was placed in his 
hand, which he then, sitting on the left-hand seat, 
placed along with the keys in the hands of the prior 
of St. Lawrence. Hereupon another ornamented garb, 
made after the pattern of the Jewish ephod, was 
placed on him. This sitting down was meant to 
symbolise taking possession ; for Pandulf goes on 
to say : "per cetera Palatii loca soHs Pontificibus 
"destinata, jam dominus vel sedens vel transiens 
"electionis modum implevit." 

It was therefore a mere matter of accident that 
these stone seats were pierced. They had been 
selected on account of their antique form and the 
beautiful colour of the stone. Every stranger who 
visited Rome could not fail to be struck with their 
unusual shape. That they had formerly been in- 
tended to be used in a bath had passed, out of every 
one's knowledge ; and the idea of such a use would 
be one of the last to occur to people in the middle 
ages. They were aware that the new pope sat, and 
on this occasion only in his whole life, on this seat, 
and this was the only use to which the seat was ever 

1 " Ascendens palatium," we read in the Koman sub-deacon^ ^. 
Pandulfus Pisanus, " ad duas curules devenit. Hie baltheo suc- 
" cingitur, cum septem ex eo pendentibus clavibus septemque 
" sigillis. Et locatus in utrisque curulibus data sibi ferula in 
" manu, etc."— Ap. Murator. SS. ItoL.^ P. iii., P. i., p. 354. 



54 POPE JOAN, 

put. The symbolical meaning of the act and of the 
ceremonies connected with it was unknown' and 
foreign to the popular mind. It accordingly invented 
an explanation of its own, just such a one as popular 
fancy is wont to give. The seat is hollow and pierced, 
they said, because they wanted to make sure that the 
pope was a man. The further question, what need 
there was to make sure of this, produced the explana- 
tion : — because, in one instance certainly, a woman 
was made pope. Here at once a field was opened 
for the development of a myth. The deception, the 
catastrophe of the discovery ; all that was forthwith 
sketched out in popular talk. Myth delights in the 
most glaring contrasts. Hence we have the highest 
sacerdotal office, and together with it its most shame- 
ful prostitution by sudden travail during a solemn 
procession, followed by childbirth in the open street. 
This done, the woman-pope has fulfilled her mission. 
The myth accordingly at once withdraws her from 
the scene. She dies in childbirth on the spot ; or, 
according to an older version, is stoned to death by 
the enraged populace. 

The story that the newly-elected pope sat down on 
the pierced seat in order to give a proof of his sex is 
first found in the Visions of the Dominican, Robert. 



POPE JOAN. 55 

d'Usez,! who died in Metz in the year 1296. He 
relates that in the year 1291, while he was staying at 
Orange, he was taken in the spirit to Rome, to the 
Lateran palace, and placed before the porphyry seat, 
ubi dicitur probari papa an sit homo." ^ After him 
Jacobo d'Agnolo di Scarperia in the year 1405 
declares respecting it, in a letter to the celebrated 
Greek, Emanuel Chrysoloras, in which he describes 
the enthronisation of Gregory XII. as an eye-witness, 
that it is a senseless popular fable.^ It is consequently 
not correct to say, what has been frequently main- 
tained, that the English writer, William Brevin,* about 
1470, was the first to make mention of the supposed 
investigation as to the sex of the pope. ^ 

1 Hist. Litt. de France, xx. 501. 

2 Liber trium Virorum et trium Spirit. Virffinum, ed. Lefebre, Paris, 
1513, f. 25. 

3 Juxta hoc (sacellum Sylvestri) gemin« sunt fixse sedes por- 
phiretico incisse lapide, in quibns, quod perforatas sint, insanam 
loquitur vulgus fabulam, quod Pontifex attractetur, an vir sit. Ap. 
Cancellieri, p. 37. 

4 In a work De Septem Principalibus Ecclesiis Urbis Romse. 

5 According to Hemmerlin (^Dialog, de Nobil. et Eusticis), the 
investigation was made by two of the clergy : " et dum invenirentur 
" illassi (testiculi), clamabant tangentes alta voce ; testiculos habet. 
" Et reclamabant clerus et populus : Deo gratias." According to 
Chalcocondylas the words were : — appTp rjfj.lv harlv 6 dtaTvoTTjg. 
[De rebus Turcicis, ed. Bekker, Bonn., 1843, p. 303.] How readily 
the popular story was believed is shown by Bernardino Corio, of 
Milan, who describes in his historical work the coronation of pope 



56 



POPE JOAN. 



Of later witnesses it is worth mentioning, that the 
Swede Lawrence Banck, who minutely described the 
solemnities which accompanied the elevation of In- 
nocent X. to the papacy [Sept. 1644], declares, with 
all earnestness, that it certainly was the case, that an 
investigation into the sex of the pope was the object 
of the ceremony. 1 At that time, however, the custom 
of sitting on the two stone seats, along with several 
other ceremonies, had long since disappeared, namely, 
since the death of Leo X. And, moreover, Banck 
does not state that he himself had seen the cere- 
mony, 2 but only that he had often seen the seat, and 
by way of proof that it took place, and with this 
particular object, appeals to writers of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries. Cancellieri, therefore, had 
good reason for expressing astonishment at the 
shamelessness of a man, who speaks on other things 
as an eye-witness, and who had only to inquire of 

Alexander VI. in the year 1492, wlien Corio himself was in Eome. 
There we read, " Fiualmente essendo finite le solite solemnitati in 
Sancta Sanctorum et dimesticamente toccatogli K testicoli, ritomo 
al palacio." Fatria Historia, P. vii., fol. Eiv. Milano, 1503. In the 
later editions the passage is omitted. Corio, howerer, says himself, 
that he was not in the church where it took place, but was standing 
outside. 

1 In the hook Roma Triumphans, Franecker, 1645. Cancellieri has 
quoted his long account entire. 

2 Cancellieri, p. 236. 



POPE JOAN, S; 

any educated Roman to learn that the custom in 
question had been given up for more than a hundred 
years. 

But the strongest case of all is that of Giampetro 
Valeriano Bolzani, one of the literary courtiers of Leo 
X., and loaded with benefices, ^ according to the im- 
moral custom of the time. This man, in a speech 
addressed to cardinal Hippolytus dei Medici, printed 
at Rome with papal privilege, did not scruple to 
decorate the fiction about the investigation into the 
sex of each newly-elected pope with new and fabulous 
circumstances. The ceremony takes places, he declares, 
quite openly in the gallery of the Lateran church 
before the eyes of the assembled multitude, and 
is then most unnecessarily proclaimed by one of the 
clergy and entered in the register. ^ Thus the wanton 
frivolity of Italian literati, and the stupid indifference 
of ecclesiastical dignitaries, worked together to spread 
this delusion, damaging as it was to the otherwise 
jealously guarded authority of the papal see, right 
through the whole mass of the populace. At the same 

1 For the long list of his benefices, see Marini, Archiatri Ponti- 
ficij, i., 291. 

2 Kesque ipsa sacri prseconis voce palam promulgata in acta mox 
refertur, legitimumque turn demum Pontificem nos habere arbi- 
tramur, quum habere ilium quod habere decet oculata fide fuerit 
coQtestatum. 



58 



POPE JOAN, 



time one could hardly have a more striking instance 
of the irresistible power which a universally-circulated 
story exercises over men, even over those of superior 
intellect. Any one could learn without trouble from 
a cardinal, or from one of the clergy taking part 
in the ceremony, what really took place there. But 
people never asked, or else imagined that the answer 
meant no more than a refusal to vouch for the fact. 
They heard this examination of the newly-elected 
pope spoken of everywhere, in the streets and in 
private houses, as a notorious fact. 

Did, then, the meaning assigned to the pierced seat 
influence the explanation of the inscription and of the 
statue ; or did, contrariwise, these two objects give 
origin to the myth about the ceremonies connected 
with the seat } That point it is now, of course, out of 
our power to determine. We can only see that the 
explanation of the three objects is as old as the myth 
about the woman-pope. 

A further confirmation of the whole was soon found 
in a circumstance of no importance in itself, and for 
which a perfectly natural explanation was ready at 
hand. It was remarked that the popes in processions 
between the Lateran and the Vatican did not enter a 
street which lay in the way, but made a circuit 
through other streets. The reason was simply the 



POPE JOAN, 



59 



narrowness of the street. But in Rome, where the 
papess was already haunting the imagination of the 
masses, it was now discovered that this was done 
to remind men how the woman had given birth to a 
child as she was going through this street, and to 
express horror at the catastrophe which had taken 
place just at that spot. In the first version of the 
fable, as we find it in the interpolated Martinus 
Polonus, it is said : " creditur omnino a quibusdamy 
" quod ob detestationem facti hoc faciatr With ^ later 
writers the thing is thoroughly established as a 
notorious fact- 
It may now be worth while to show by a few 
examples, how easily a popular myth, or a mythical 
explanation, may be called into existence by a 
circumstance, so soon as anything is perceived in it, 
which seems in the eyes of the people to be astonish- 
ing, or which excites their imagination. 

The bigamy of the Count of Gleichen plays an im- 
portant part in our literature, and is still believed to 
be true by numberless people. A count of Gleichen 

1 The chroniclers copy one from another to such a slavish extent 
in this narrative, that the incorrect expression of the interpolater, 
" Dominus Papa, quum vadit ad Lateraniim, eandem viam semper 
" ohliquai^ (instead of declinat) has been retained by all his followers. 
The avoided street was, moreover, pulled down by Sixtus V., on 
account of its narrowness. [The spot where the catastrophe was said 
to have taken place is between the Colosseum and St. Clement's.] 



6o 



POPE JOAN. 



is said to have gone to Palestine in the year 1227, in 
company with the Landgrave of Thuringia, and there 
to have been captured by the Saracens and thrown 
into prison. Through the daughter of the Sultan he 
obtained his liberty ; and the story goes that, although 
his wife was living, he obtained a dispensation from 
pope Gregory IX. in the year 1240 or 1241, and 
married the princess ; and the three lived together in 
undisturbed peace for many years afterwards: It is a 
well-known fact that the very bed itself (an unusually 
broad one) of the count and his two wives, was shown 
for a long time afterwards. 

This story is told for the first time in the year 
1584, that is to say, three centuries and a half later. ^ 
But from that time onwards it is related in numerous 
writings, and in the next century became a matter of 
popular belief, so that henceforth it was printed in all 
histories of Thuringia, and is to be found in par- 
ticular in Jovius, Sagittarius, Orlearius, Packenstein, 
etc. In this case, also, it was a tombstone v/hich gave 
occasion to the story. On it was represented a knight 
with two 2 female figures, one of whom had a peculiar 

1 In Dresseri Rhetorica, Lips,, p. 76, squ. 

2 It is, as Placidus Muth, of Erfurt, has conjectured with much 
probability, the monument of a count of Grleichen, who died in 1494, 
and his two wives. 



POPE JOAN, 



6t 



head dress decorated with a star. No sooner had the 
myth which fastened on to this figure begun to weave 
its web, than reHcs and signs began to multiply. Not 
only was the bedstead shown, but a jewel which the 
pope had presented to the Turkish princess, and 
which she wore in her turban ; a " Turk's road," was 
pointed out, leading to the castle, and a " Turk's 
room " within it. And not a word about all this until 
the seventeenth century. In earlier times no one had 
ever heard a syllable about the story or the relics. ^ 

Another instance is afforded by the Piistrich at 
Sondershausen, a bronze figure, hollow inside, with 
an opening in the head. It was found in the year 
1 5 50, in a subterranean chapel of the castle of Rothen- 
burg, near Nordhausen, and was brought to Son- 
dershausen in the year 1576, where it still exists 
in the cabinet of curiosities. Thirty or forty years 
had scarcely passed before a legend had grown up, 
which quite harmonised with a time immediately suc- 
ceeding the great religious contest of the Reforma- 
tion, and with a country in which the old religion was 
vanquished. The Piistrich was said to have stood in a 
niche in a pilgrimage church, and by monkish 
jugglery to have been filled with water, and made to 
vomit flames of fire, in order to terrify the people, 
and induce them to make large offerings. Frederick 

1 See Hallesche Encycl. Bd. 69. . 
6 



62 POPE JOAN, 

Succus, preacher in the cathedral of Magdeburg, 
from 1567 to 1576, relates all this, with many details 
as to the way in which the deception was managed, 
adding the remark, "that no one could do the like 
" now-a-days, so as to make the image vomit flames, 
" and that many thought it was perhaps brought 
" about by magic and witchcraft." ^ 

Again, every one knows the story of Archbishop 
Hatto, of Mayence, who had a strong tower built in 
the middle of the Rhine, in order to protect himself 
from the mice ; but in spite of that was devoured 
by them. This event, which would have fallen within 
the year 970, had it happened at all, is mentioned 
for the first time at the beginning of the fourteenth 
century, in Siffrid's chronicle. Before that there 
is not a trace of it. The Mausethurm, or Muus- 
thurm 2 (that is. Arsenal), as Bodmann explains, was 
not built till the beginning of the thirteenth ^ century. 

1 Kabe, Ber Pitstrich zu Sondershausen^ Berlin, 1852, p. 58. He 
shows hoAv absurd the story is, although repeated in the seventeenth 
century by Walther, Titus, and Rtiser. Even in the year 1782 
Galetti, and in 1830 the preacher Quehl, related the ridiculous 
story. Eabe conjectures with probability that the Piistrich is 
nothing more than the support of a font. [Others have supposed 
it to be an idol of the Sorbic-Wends.] 

2 Ap. Pistor. SS., Germ., i., 10. 

3 [By a bishop named Siegfried, together with the opposite castle 
of Ehrenfels, as a watch tower and toll-house for collecting duties 
on all goods which passed up or down the river. Maus is possibly 
only another form of Mauth, toll or excise. Archbishop Hatto died 
in 970.] 



POPE JOAN. 



63 



Its name with the people slipped from Muusthurm to 
Mausethurm, and thus, according to all appearance, 
gave rise to the whole story. In all that is historically 
known of Hatto II. there is not a feature with which 
the legend could connect itself. The story of a prince 
or great man, who tried to save himself from the 
pursuit of mice in a tower surrounded by water, is to 
be found in several other places. It appears in 
the mountains of Bavaria ; it occurs among the myths 
of primitive Polish history. In ^ the latter case King 
Popiel, his wife, and two sons, are followed and killed 
by mice in a tower in the Goplosee, which to this day 
bears the name of Mouse-tower. Wherever a tower 
on an island was to be seen, the object of which could 
no longer be explained, there sprang up the story of 
the blood-thirsty mice. ^ 

1 Eopell's GeschicUe Polens^ i., 74. [See Appendix C] 

2 Liebrecht's explanation in Wolfs Zeitschrift far deutsche 
Mythologie, ii., 408, seems to be erroneous. He says, that " at the 
" root of legends on this subject lies the primitive custom of 
" hanging the chiefs of the nation as an offering to appease the 
" gods, on the occurrence of any national calamity, such as famine 
" through the ravages of mice, for instance." In the first place, 
human sacrifice by means of hanging is almost, if not quite, 
unknown; secondly, it is not usually a tree, but a tower on an 
island, to which the legend attaches itself ; and, lastly, the legend 
places the event, as in the case of Hatto, very much later — quite in 
Christian times. [But may we not give up the hanging, and even 
the tree, and still retain the idea of propitiatory sacrifice ?J 



64 



POPE JOAN, 



If an unusual hollow was remarked in a stone, 
a hole of extraordinary shape, anything which the 
imagination could take for the impress of a hand or a 
foot, there at once a myth found lodgment. A stone 
in the wall of a church at Schlottau in Saxony, which 
is thought to look like the face of a monk without 
ever having been carved by the hand of man, has 
given occasion to a legend of attempted sacrilege, and 
marvellous punishment. ^ 

On the Riesenthor (Giant-Porch) of St. Stephen's 
Cathedral at Vienna, a youth is introduced in the 
carving of the upper part, who appears to rest a 
wounded foot on the other knee. A legend has been 
spun out of that. The architect, Pilgram, ^ is said to 
have thrown his pupil, Puchsprunn, from the scaffold- 
ing, out of jealousy, because the execution of the 
second tower had been transferred to the latter while 
still under Pilgram. ^ 

The fable of the papess belongs to the local myths 

1 See Grasse's Sagenschatz des Konigreichs Sachsn. Dresden, 1855. 

2 [Pilgram was one of the later architects, successor of Jorg 
(Echsel about 1510. The church was founded in 1144. The 
Riesenthor seems to belong to a period subsequent to the fire of 
1258 ; but it and the Heidenthiirme are almost the oldest parts of 
the present building, and therefore existed long before Pilgram's 
time.] 

3 Hormayr. Wien^ seine Geschichte, u. s. w., 27, 46. 



POPE JOAN. 65 

of Rome, of which a whole cycle existed in the 
Middle Ages. Hence it may be worth while to 
compare the birtli of such a myth with a Roman 
example. The legend about the origin of the house 
of Colonna, whose power and greatness afforded 
material for the imagination of the people, is so 
far similar in its origin to that about Pope Joan, as 
it was a piece of sculpture, viz., the arms of the house 
with a column, which the legend endeavoured to 
explain. Just as the lozenge of Saxony, the wheel of 
Mayence, and the virgin of the Osnabruck arms, 
have called forth legends of their own to explain 
them. 

A smith in Rome notices that his cow, every day, 
goes of her own accord in the same direction. He 
follows her, creeps after her through a narrow open- 
ing, and finds a meadow with a building in it. In 
the building stands a stone column, and on the 
top of it a brazen vessel full of money. He is about 
to take some of the money, when a voice calls out to 
him, " It is not thine ; take three denarii, and 
" thou wilt find on the Forum to whom the money 
" belongs." The smith does so, and flings the three 
pieces of money to three difi"erent parts of the Forum. 
A poor neglected lad finds them all three, becomes 
the smith's son-in-law, buys great possessions with 



66 



POPE JOAN. 



the money on the column, and so founds the house of 
Colonna. ^ 

This, perhaps, is sufficient illustration of the way in 
which the legend of Pope Joan arose. Two circum- 
stances, however, require special discussion, the state- 
ments that the woman came from Mayence, and that 
she had studied in Athens. 

The first mention that we find respecting the 
original home of the female pope, namely, in the 
passage interpolated into Martinus Polonus, combines 
two contradictory statements. It makes her an 
Englishwoman, and, at the same time, a native 
of Mayence : " Johannes Anglus, natione Mogun- 

tinus." Probably two stories were extant, of which 
one made the impostor come from the British Isles, 
the other from Germany. The reason for one story 
making her a native of England may have been this. 
It was a common thing for Englishwomen to go on 
pilgrimages to Rome : we find St. Boniface even in 
his day complaining of the number of them, and 
their dubious character. Or it may have been that 
the birth, and first spreading of the myth, fell just 
within that long period of the violent struggle 
between Innocent III. and king John, while England 

1 Fr. Jacobi de Acqui Chronieon Imaginis Mundi, in tlie 3IonU' 
menta Hist. Fatrise, Scri^t.^ Vol. iii., p. 1603. 



POPE JOAN. 67 

was accounted in Rome as the power which above all 
others was hostile to the Roman see. For, from the 
very beginning, the fictitious event was considered as 
a deep disgrace, a heavy blow struck at the authority 
of the Roman see ; and the myth expressed that by 
making a country which was considered as hostile to 
Rome, to be the home of the papess, a woman-pope. 
In like manner the mythical king Popiel, who was 
devoured by mice, on account of the wrong done to 
his father's brothers, is represented in the Polish 
myth as having married the daughter of a German 
prince, in order that the guilt of instigating him 
to the crime might fall on a woman of a foreign 
nation, and one always hostile to the Sclaves. ^ 

It is not difficult to explain how the other version 
of the story, which became the prevalent one, came 
to assign Mayence as the native place of the papess. 

The rise of the myth falls into the period of the 
great contest between the papacy and the empire, 
a time when the Germans often appeared in arms 
before Rome, and in Rome broke down the walls 
of the city, took the popes prisoners, or compelled 
them to take to flight. "Omne malum ab Aquilone," 
was the feeling at that time in Rome. Germany had 
then no special capital ; no recognised royal or 

1 Ropell, Geschichte Folens, p. 77, 



68 



POPE JOAN, 



imperial place of residence. No city but Mayence 
could be called the most important city in the realm. 
It was the seat of the first prince of the empire, ^ and 
the centre of government. " Moguntia, ubi maxima 
" vis regni esse noscitur," says Otto of Freysingen. ^ 
In the Ligiirinus of the Pseudo-Gunther, it is said of 
Mayence : " Pene fuit toto sedes notissima regno." 

In the cycle of myths which cluster round 
Charlemagne, and which Italy also appropriated 
(e.g. in the Reali di Francia, which was extant as 
early as the fourteenth century, and in other produc- 
tions belonging to the same cycle of myths), Roman 
aversion to the German metropolis, Mayence, is 
glaringly prominent. Mayence is the seat and home 
of the malicious scheme of treachery against Charles 
the Great and his house. Ganelo, the arch-traitor, is 
count of Mayence. All his party, and his associates 
in treachery, are called " Maganzesi." They and 
Ganelo, or the men of Mayence, represent the 
treacherous usurpation of the empire by the Germans, 
in violation of the birthright of Rome. 

1 [The electoral archbisliops of Mayence were the premier 
princes of the empire ; they presided at diets, and at the election of 
the emperor. Even in Roman times the Castellnm Mogimtiacum 
was the most important of the chain of fortresses which Drusus Touilt 
along the Rhine, aind which in like manner became the gerns of 
large towns.] 

2 De Gestis Frfderici /., c. 12. 



POPE yOAN, 69 

So again in Pulci's Morgante, and In Ariosto's 
Cinque Caitti or Ganeloni. The poem, Doolin of 
Mayence^ is, to a certain extent, a German rejoinder 
to the polemics of Rome, as shown in the Carolin- 
gian myths. Here Doolin, son of Guido, count of 
Mayence, steps forward as the rival of Charlemagne, 
first fights with him, then after an indecisive battle is 
reconciled to him, with him goes to Vauclere, the 
city of Aubigeant (Wittekind), king of Saxony, 
marries Flandrine, the daughter of the latter, and 
ends by joining with Charles in the subjugation of 
Saxony. 

Ganelo of Mayence, the treacherous founder of the 
first German kingdom by separation from the West 
Frank kingdom, is supplemented in the Italian myth 
(which thus represents the great contest and op- 
position between Guelf and Ghibelline) by another 
native of Mayence, Ghibello. The story is to be 
found in Bogardo's Italian version of the Pomarium 
of Riccobaldo of Ferrara. ^ King Conrad II. (it is 
Conrad III. who is meant) nominates Gibello 
Maguntino to be administrator of the kingdom in 
Lombardy in opposition to Welfo, whom the Church 
had set up as regent of Lombardy. Gibello is of 
noble but poor family, had studied for awhile in 

1 In Muratori, SS. Ital ix , 360, 57. 



70 



POPE JOAN. 



Italy, acquires then great eminence in his native city, 
Mayence, becomes chancellor of Bohemia, but is 
publicly convicted of " baratteria," i.e., of political 
fraud or treason. He and Welfo now have a contest 
together, which ends in Gibello dying at Bergamo, 
and Welfo at Milan. Gibello of Maganza is, as one 
sees, a repetition of Gano or Ganelo of Maganza. 
But it is also evident why Johannes or Johanna must 
be made to come from Mayence, and why " Magun- 
" tinus" or " Magantinus" must be called " Margan- 
" tinus." 1 

In later times the story, now romancing with an 
object, endeavoured to harmonise the two statements, 

1 Both in manuscripts and printed copies we repeatedly find Mar- 
gantinus instead of Marguntinus. It would appear that Margan, a 
famous abbey in Grlamorganshire, is here indicated, where the 
Annales de Margan, with which the second volume of Gale's Historix 
Anglic. Scriptores commences, were composed. People could not 
reconcile the appellation Anglicus with the distinctive name 
Maguntinus, and accordingly changed the German birthplace into 
an English one. Bernard Guidonis came to the rescue in a different 
way ; instead of Anglicus, he wrote Johannes Teutonicus natione 
Maguntinus. Vitx Pontijimm^ ap. Maii Spicil. Rom. vi., 202. Among 
the amusing attempts which have been made to reconcile the two 
adjectives Anglicus and Maguntinus, may be mentioned the 
version of Amalricus Augerii (Ilistona Pontificum^ ap. Eccard, ii., 
1706). Here the woman -pope is called Johannes, Anglicus natione, 
dictus Magnanimus (instead of Maguntinus). The author would 
intimate that the boldness and strength of character, without which 
such a course of life, involving the concealment of her sex for so 
many years, would not have been possible, had won for her the 
distinctive title of " magnanimous." 



POPE JOAN. 



71 



that the female pope was Angh'cus," and also 
" natione Maguntinus." The parents of Joan were 
made to migrate from England to Mayence ; or she 
was called "Anglicus," it was said, because an 
English monk in Fulda had been her paramour. 1 

In Germany, however, people began now to be 
ashamed of the German origin of Pope Joan. She 
was thrown in the teeth of the Germans, we are told 
in the chronicle of the bishops of Verden, because 
she is said to have come from Mayence. ^ Indeed 
some went so far as to say that this circumstance of 
the German woman-pope was the reason why no 
more Germans were elected popes, as Werner 
Rolevink mentions, adding at the same time that 
this was not the true reason. ^ In order to conceal 
the circumstance, we find in the German manuscripts 
of Martinus Polonus " Margantinus" constantly in- 
stead of " Magantinus ;" and the Compilatio Chronica 
in Leibnitz ^ knows only of Johannes Anglicus. This 
feeling that the nationality of the papess was a thing 

1 Compare Maresii Johanna Papissa Restituta^ p. 18. 

2 Ap. Leibnitz, SS. Brunsvic, ii., 212. 

3 Fascic. Tem-p. set. vi., f, 66. So also in the Dutch DivisiC' 
Chronyk, printed at Leyden in the year 1517. " Om dat dese Paeus 
" wt duytslant rus van ments opten ryn, so menen sommige, dat dit 
" die sake is, dat men genen geboren duytsche meer tat paeus 
*' settet." 

4 SS. Brunsvic, ii., 63. 



f2 



POPE JOAN, 



of which Germany must be ashamed even produced 
a new romance, the object of which was manifestly 
nothing else than to transfer the home of the female 
pope and her paramour from Germany to Greece. ^ 

The other feature in the myth, that the woman 
studied in Athens, and then came and turned her 
knowledge to account in Rome as a teacher of great 
repute, is thoroughly in accordance with the spirit 
of mediaeval legends. As a-matter of fact, no one for a 
thousand years had gone from the West to Athens for 
purposes of study; for the very best of reasons, 
because there was nothing more to be found there. 
But that was no obstacle to the myth, according 
to which Athens in ancient times (that means 
perhaps before the rise of the University of Paris) 
was accounted as the one great seat of education 
and learning. For that there was, and ought to be, 
only one " Studium," just as there was, and ought to 
be, only one Empire and one Popedom, was the 
prevailing sentiment of that age. The Church has 
" need of three powers or institutions," we read in the 
Chronica Jorda?iis, " the Priesthood, the Empire, and 
" the University. And as the Priesthood has only 

4 It is to be found in a manuscript from Tergernsee, now in the 
royal library at Munich, of the fifteenth century, Codex lat. Tegerns.^ 
V81. [See Appendix A.] 



POPE JOAN, 73 

" one seat, namely Rome, so the University has and 
needs only one seat, namely Paris. Of the three 
" leading nations each possesses one of these in- 
stitutions. The Romans or Italians have the 
" Priesthood, the Germans have the Empire, and the 
" French have the University." ^ 

This University was originally in Athens, thence 
it was transported to Rome, and from Rome Charle- 
magne (or his son) transplanted it to Paris. The 
very year of this transfer was stated. Thus we find 
in the Chronicon Tielense^ ^ " Anno D. 830, Romanum 
" studium, quod prius Athenis exstitit, est translatum 
« Parisios." 

Hence in ancient times, according to the prevalent 
notion, the University was at Athens ; and whoever 
would rise to great eminence in the sphere of know- 
ledge must go there. There were only two ways 
in which a foreign adventurer could attain to the 
highest office in the Church — piety, or learning. The 
legend could not make the girl from Mayence become 
eminent through piety; this would not agree with 

1 In Schard. De Jurisd. Tmperiali ac Potest. Eccles, Variorum 
Authorum Scripta., Basil., 1566, p. 307. 

2 Ed. van Lecuwen, Trajecti, 1789, p. 37. So also Gobelinus 
Persona. The anonymous writer in Vincent of Beauvais had 
previoiisly stated, " Alcuinus studium de Roma Parisios transtulii^ 
" quod illuc a Grsecia translatum fuerat a Romanis." 

7 



74 



POPE JOAN, 



her subsequent seduction and the birth of the child in 
th^ open street. Therefore it was through her learn- 
ing that she won for herself universal admiration, 
and, at the election to the papacy, a unanimous vote. 
And this learning she could only have attained in 
Athens. For the University, as Amalricus Augerii 
says, was at that time in Greece. ^ 

1 See Eccard., ii., 1707. 

[For additional matter on the general subject of the Papess, seo 
Appendix B.J 




II. POPE CYRIACUS. 



Pope Cyriacus was foisted into the Roman list of 
popes about the same time as Pope Joan, and like 
her, maintained his usurped position for a long time. 
Here intentional imposture, visionary fancy and 
groundless credulity conspired together to create a 
pope as unreal and as purely invented as Pope Joan. 

In the middle of the twelfth century the nun 
Elizabeth, in the monastery of Schonau, in the dio- 
cese of Treves, stood far and wide in high repute. 
Her visions were inexhaustible ; and as often as a 
grave was opened, and the bones and remains of 
some nameless corpse were found, the name and 
history of the unknown dead were revealed to her, as 
she said, by an angel or a saint. This worked with 
inspiriting effect on those who wanted new relics of 
saints for a church or a chapel to attract the stream 
of population thither. Elizabeth had already been 
busy with the myth of St. Ursula ^ and her maidens ; 

[They are said to have been martyred in 237 ; the sixteenth 
centenary of the event was celebrated in 1837. Yet it was the 
Huns returning from their defeat at Chalons, in 451, who put the 
maidens to death ! St. Ursula's name appears in no martyrology 
earlier than the tenth century. Mr. Baring-Grould considers her as 
" no other than the Swabian goddess Ursel or Horsel transformed 
"into a saint of the Christian calendar." — Curious AIyth& of the 
Middle Ages, 1869, p. 331]. 



76 



POPE CYRIACUS. 



and since 1155 thousands of corpses had been dug- up 
in the fields near Cologne, all of which were said to 
have belonged to St. Ursula's company. At last, 
however, the corpses of men also came to light. 
Tombstones with inscriptions were discovered there, 
or rather were forthwith invented. They spoke of an 
Archbishop Simplicius, of Ravenna, Marinus, bishop 
of Milan, Pantulus, of Basle, and several cardinals 
and priests. There was, moreover, a stone with the 
inscription — " St. Cyriacus Papa , Romanus qui cum 
*'gaudio suscepit sacras virgines et cum iisdem re- 
" versus martyrium suscepit et St. Alina V." These 
epitaphs were sent by the abbot Gerlach to Elizabeth. 
By the visions which she saw in her states of magnetic 
clairvoyance she was to decide whether these tablets 
were to be believed.^ For he himself, as he said, 
entertained a suspicion that the stones might have 
been secretly buried there with a view to gain. 
Her2 unwillingness to act as judge was overcome, 
and now the following history came to light. At the 

1 The inscriptions and the narration of St, Elizabeth are to be 
found, Ada Sanctorum Octbr. ix., 86-88. The finding of the tomb- 
stones was set on foot, it seems, to explain the appearance of so 
many bones of males in the field (ager Ursulanus), where people 
had been accustomed to expect only the bones of the pretended 
virgins, and in order to vindicate the honour of the maidens. 

2 " Diutina postulatione me multum resistentem compulerunt," 
are her words. 



■ POPE CYRIACUS. 77 

time when Ursula and her maidens came to Rome, 
Cyriacus haci already reigned a year and eleven 
weeks as the nineteenth pope. In the night he re- 
ceived the co.nmand of heaven to renounce his office, 
and go forth with the maidens, for a martyr's death 
awaited him and them. He accordingly resigned his 
authority into the hands of the cardinals, and caused 
Antherus to be raised to the papacy in his place. 
The Roman clergy, however, were so indignant at the 
abdication of Cyriacus that they struck his name out 
of the list of the popes. 

Accordingly, every objection created by previously- 
existing authorities was forthwith quashed, and the 
chroniclers of the thirteenth century determined 
without further thought that the newly discovered 
pope must be inserted between Pontianus and Anteros 
(238). The first to do this was the Premonstratensian 
monk, Robei ': Abolant at Auxerre, who in the first 
part of this century composed a general chronicle. 
The Dominicans, Vincent of Beauvais and Thomas 
of Chantinpr6, followed, and after them the Cistercian 
Alberich. Martinus Polonus was in this case also the 
decisive authority and source of information for the 
times subsequent to himself. In him the reason why 
Cyriacus v/as not found in the Caialogus Pontificur/i 
is given with more particularity : " Credebant enini 



73 



POPE CYRIACUS. 



" plerlque eum non propter devotionem, sed propter 
*' oblectamenta virginum Papatum dimisisse." And 
on this point Leo of Orvieto has followed him. 
Aimery du Peyrat^ also, and Bernard Guidonis^ con- 
tend for Cyriacus, while Amalrich ALu^erii passes him 
over. The oldest chronicle in the German language 
(about 1330) says of him : " Want er lies daz babes- 
" thum und die wiirdikeit wider der Cardinal willen, 
*' und fur mit den XL tusing megden gen Colen, und 
" wart gemartert, darumb tilketen die cardinal sinen 
" namen abe der bebiste buche." ^ The Eidogiiim 
historiarumy compiled by a monk of Malmesbury 
about the year 1366, introduces him with the remark, 
Hie cessit de papatu contra voluntatem cleri." ^ In 
the fifteenth century Cyriacus, as was to be expected, 
appeared in all the better known historical works ; 
in Antonius, Philip of Bergamo, Nauklerus, etc., and 

1 Notices et ExtraitSj vi., 77. 

2 Maii Spicily vi., 29. 

3 [" Since, against the will of the Cardinals, he gave tip the papacy 
and the honor, and went with the eleven thousand maidens to Co- 
logne, and was martyred, on this accomit the Cardinals expunged 
his na7ne from the Popes' Book."] Oberrheinische Chronik, edited 
by S. A. Grieshaber, 1850, p. 5. 

4 Ed. Scott Haydon, Lond., 1858, i., 180. [Huic successit Siriacug 
papa qui sedit anno uno, mensibus iii. 5 hie cessi' de papatu contra / 
voluntatem cleri, sequendo xi m. virgines quas brptizaverat, et sub- 
stituendo Anaclerum, et ideo non apponitiir in catalog© paparum.] 



POPE CYRIACUS. 



79 



hence passed even into the older editions of the 
Roman breviary.^ 

But as early as the last year of the thirteenth 
century the story of Cyriacus had become of no small 
practical importance, and the lawyers had appro- 
priated it for their purposes. 

The resignation of Coelestine V., and the con- 
sequent elevation of Boniface VIII. to the papacy, 
created very great commotion. Many were of opinion 
that it was utterly impossible for a pope to resigi% 
for he had no ecclesiastical superior who could 
release him from his sacred obligations, and no one 
can release himself. The numerous opponents of Bo- 
niface pourijCed upon this question, and it was now of 
importance to discover instances of popes resigning. 
Accordingly the author of the Glossa Ordinaria to 
the decree, in which Boniface VIII. afhrmed the right 
of popes to resign, appealed to the undoubted 
instance of Cyriacus ; ^ and thenceforward nearly all 

1 Berti, in the Raccolta di Dissertazion of Zaccaria, ii., 10, remarks 
that he finds the fabulous acts of St, Ursula even in the breviary of 
1526 ; and, according to Launoi, they are still found in the breviary 
of 1550. 

2 " Datur autem certum exemplum de Cyriaco Papa, de quo 
" legitur, quod cum Ursula et undecim millibus virginum martyr- 
" izatus est.'"' Then follows the narrative as given by Martinus Polo- 
nus. Thus it stands in the older editions of the Lib . vi. Decretal., 
cap. Eenunciat., Lugdun. 1520, 1550, 1553. In the later editions 
the passage is omitted. 



8o POPE CYRIACUS, 



canonists availed themselves of the same pretended 
authority, and not only they, but theologians also, as, 
for example, ^gidius Colonna ^ and Sylvester Prieras. 
It was usual to quote three popes in primitive times 
as instances of abdication, Clement, Marcellinus, and 
Cyriacus ; 2 so that it really was a most strange 
mishap that all three cases should be invention. 

The supposed resignation of Clement was invented 
merely to harmonise the discrepancy between the 
statements, according to which he was sometimes 
said to have come immediately after St. Peter, some- 
times not till after Linus and Anacletus. 

1 De Renunciatione Papse, in Kocaberti Bihlioth. Max. Pontif.^ 
ii., 61. 

2 So, for instance, Augustinus de Ancona, Summa, quest. 4, art. 
8 : " Eespondes dicendum, quod Canones et gesta Pontificum qua- 
" tuor Summos Pontifices narrant renunciasse Pontificatui, Clemen- 
" tern, Cyriacum, Marcellinum et Caslestinum.'' So too, Albericus de 
Kosate, Dominicus a S. Geminiano, Johannes Turrecremata, Anto- 
nius Guccbus Bartbolomaeus Fumus, and others. 



III. MARCELLINUS. 



The fable about Pope MarcelHnus is far more an- 
cient than the fiction of Pope Cyriacus. For nearly a 
thousand years it passed for truth along with the 
equally imaginary synod of Sinuessa, and has been 
much used by theologians and lawyers in support of 
their theories. ^ 

At the beginning of the persecution under Dio- 
cletian (this is the fable in substance), the pontifex of 
the Capitol represented to MarcelHnus, who was then 
pope, that he might without scruple offer incense to 
the gods, for the three wise men from the East had 
done so before Christ. Both agreed to let the point 
be decided by Diocletian, who was at that time 
in Persia, and he naturally ordered that the pope 
should offer incense. Accordingly MarcelHnus is 
conducted to the temple of Vesta, and there offers 

1 [It is well known that this fable has been admitted into the 
Roman breviary. The interpolation seems to have been made in 
the first half of the sixteenth century. " A la fete de Saint Marcellin, 
"le 16 Avril, I'ancien breviaire romain de 1520 se borne an recit du 
" martyre de ce Pape. Mais voici un autre breviaire romain de 1536 
" (Bibl. Sainte Genevieve, No. B B 70), et un autre de 1542 (Ibid. 
"No. B B 67) oil Ton introduit la fable odieuse et ridicule du 
" pretendu concile de Sinuesse." — A. Gratry, Premilre leltre d Mgr. 
" Beschamps, p. 58.] 



82 POPE MARCELLINUS. 

sacrifices, in the presence of a crowd of Christian 
spectators, to Hercules, Jupiter, and Saturn. At the 
news of this three ^ hundred bishops leave their sees, 
and gather together to hold a council, first in a cavern 
near Sinuessa, but, as this would not hold more than 
fifty, afterwards in the town itself. Along with them 
were thirty Roman priests. Several priests and 
deacons are deposed, merely because they had gone 
away when they saw the pope enter the temple. 
Marcellinus, on the other hand, neither may nor can 
be judged, being supreme head of the church, — this 
conviction pervades the whole synod, — the ^ pope can 
only be judged by himself. At first he attempts to 
palliate his act ; but seventy-two witnesses make 
accusation against him. Thereupon he ^ acknow- 
ledges his guilt, and himself pronounces his own 
deposition on the 23rd of August, 303. After this the 
bishops remain quietly together in Sinuessa, until 
Diocletian, upon receiving intelligence of this synod 

1 [A number quite impossible for that country, especially in a 
time of persecution,] 

2 [The bishops say to him, "Tu eris judex; ex te enim dam- 
naberis, et ex te justificaberis, tamen in nostra prsesentia. Prima 
Sedes non judicabitur a quoquam."] 

3 [He denied his guilt the first two days ; but on the third day, 
being adjured in God's name to speak the truth, he throws himself 
on the ground, covers his head with ashes, and repeatedly acknow- 
ledges his guilt, adding that he had been bribed to offer sacrifice.] 



POPE MARCELLINUS, 83 



in Persia, sends an order for the execution of many of 
the three hundred, and this is carried into effect. 

Since the time of Baronius not a single historian 
worth mentioning has renewed the attempt to 
maintain the authenticity of this synod of Sinuessa 
and its acts, this clumsy structure of absurdities and 
impossibilities. ^ Whether any residuum of truth, any 
actual lapse on the part of Marcellinus in the persecu- 
tion, lies at the bottom of the fabrication, cannot 
now be stated with certainty. Contemporary writers 
say nothing on the subject. Later on the Donatists 
alone, in the time of Augustine, professed to know 
that Marcellinus, and with him his successors, 
Melchiades, Marcellus, and Sylvester, who were at 
that time priests, had [delivered up the Scriptures, 
and had] offered incense to the gods in the persecu- 
tion. The bishop of Hippo treats it as a fabrication. 
Theodoret maintains that Marcellinus was con- 
spicuous at the time of the persecution (of course for 

1 [Hefele {Coneiliengeschichtej iii., iii., § 10, note 2) gives the 
main authorities against the fable. Augustine, De unico Baptismo 
contra Petilianum, c. 16 ; Theodoret, ffist., EccL, lib. i., c. 2. Among 
commentators, Pagi, Crit. in Annales Baronii, ad ann. 302, n. 18 ; 
Papebroch, in the Acta Sand, in Propyl. Mag , vol. viii. ; Natalis 
Alexander, Hi t. Eccl. sasc. iii., diss, xx., vol. iv., p. 135, ed. Venet., 
1778 ; Eemi Ceillier, Hist, des auteurs sacres, vol. iii., p. 681. Among 
Protestant authors, Bower, Hist, of the Popes, vol i , p. 68 if. j Walcb, 
Hist. d. Paps!e, p. 68 ff. ; Hist, der Kirchenvers., p. 126 J 



^4 POPE MARCELLINUS: 

his constancy). However, it has lately come to light 
that a fiction, composed about the same time, and 
perhaps by the same hand, as that about the synod of 
Sinuessa, was connected with events which really took 
place in Rome. This was the Co7istitutum SilvestrL And 
hence it is possible that a circumstance, at that time 
still known in Rome, may have afforded the first mate- 
rial for the fabrication respecting Marcellinus also. 

But however that may be, of a synod at Sinuessa 
at this time there is not a trace anywhere else to be 
found. The Acts of the pretended synod are 
evidently fabricated in order to manufacture an 
historical support for the principle, that a pope can be 
judged by no man. Tliis incessantly-repeated sentence 
is the red thread which runs through the whole ; 
the rest is mere appendage. By this means it 
is to be inculcated on the laity that they must not 
venture to come forward as accusers of the clergy, 
and on the inferior clergy that they must not do the 
like against their superiors. The date and occasion 
of the fabrication can be stated with tolerable 
certainty. The older list of the popes, which comes 
down to the death of Felix III. in 530, and can 
scarcely have been made later than the seventh 
century, has already accepted the fable about the 
apostasy of Marcellinus. . 



POPE MARCELLINUS. 85 



On the other hand, the language of the document 
IS so barbarous that it can hardly have been written 
before the close of the fifth century. And thus we 
are directed to those troubled sixteen years (498-514), 
in which the pontificate of Symmachus ran its course. 
At that time the two parties of Laurentius and Sym- 
machus stood opposed to one another in Rome as 
foes. People, senate, and clergy were divided ; they 
fought and murdered in the streets, and Laurentius 
maintained himself for several years in possession of 
part of the churches. Symmachus was accused by 
his opponents of grave offences. He had to answer 
for himself before a synod, which King Theodoric 
summoned ; if he should be found guilty he must be 
deposed, cried the one party ; while the other party 
maintained that for a pope there was no earthly 
tribunal. 1 This was the time at which Eunodius 
wrote his apology for Symmachus, and this accord- 
ingly was also the time at which the synod of 
Sinuessa, as well as the Constitutum of Sylvester, was 

1 " Hos (his, viz., nonniillis episcopis et senatoribus) palam pro 
" ejus defensione clamantibus, quod a nullo possit Romanus Ponti- 
"fex, etiamsi talis sit, qualis accusatur, audiri." Vita Symmachi in 
Muratori, zS'.S' /^o^., iii., ii., 46. [" In sacerdotibus cjeteris potest si 
" quid forte nutaverit, reformari : at si papa urbis vocatur in dubium, 
"episcopatus videbitur, non jam episcopus, vacillare." — Avitus ad 
Seratt. apud Labbe, p. 1365, 

He adds further on, " Non estgregis pastorem terrere, sed judicis."] 



86 POPE MARCELLINUS, 



fabricated. The hostile party were numerous and 
influential, their opposition was tenacious and un- 
remitting, their demand for an inquiry and exami- 
nation of witnesses seemed natural and fair ; and 
therefore the adherents of Symmachus caught at this 
means of showing that the inviolability of the pope 
had been long since recognised as a fact, and enounced 
as a rule. 

A third fabrication, the Gesta de Xysti purgatione 
et Polychronii I erosolymitani episcopi acaisatioiie, was 
produced by the same hand, and for the same 
purpose.! As in the Apology of Eunodius, so also 
in the ConstitiLtiLin and the Gesta, the principle is 
inculcated that a pope has no earthly judge over him. 
If he lies under g-ave suspicion, or if charges are 
brought against him, he must himself declare his 
own guilt, himself pronounce his own deposition, as 
Marcellinus, or he must clear himself by the simple 
asseveration of his own innocence, as Xystus III., 
according to the Gesta, is said to have done, when a 
charge of unchastity was brought against him by 
Bassus. Besides all this, the prosecution of a bishop 
for anything whatever was rendered difficult or im- 
possible according to the three fictitious documents ; 

1 They are all to be found in the Appendix to Constant's edition 
of the Epistolss. Fontificum Rom. 



POPE MARCELLINUS. ' 87 

for seventy-tv/o (or, according to the Gesta, at any 
rate forty) witnesses were to be required in such 
cases. 

In later times the fable was made use of for 
altogether different purposes. Pope Nicolas I. quoted 
it in his letter to the Greek emperor ^ Michael 
[a.D. 862], because it showed that the deposition of 
Ignatius was contrary to ecclesiastical discipline, 
since he had been sentenced by his inferiors. 

Gerson ^ made use of it, on the other hand, 
together with the lapse of Liberius, in order, by 
means of these instances of heresy in popes (this 
word, as is well known, was specially used at that 
time in the wider sense of a denial of the faith), to 
prove the legitimacy of a council assembled either 
without or against the authority of the pope. Gerbert 
also appealed to it with a similar object. 

1 In Harduin, Cone. Coll., v., 155. 

2 Serm. coram Alex. v. u., 136, ed. Dupin. 



IV. CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 



If the mere number of witnesses could make a 
statement credible, there would be no fact more certain 
or irrefutable than that the Emperor Constantine, 
more than twenty years before his death, was baptized 
at Rome by pope Sylvester, and at the same time 
cured of leprosy. For nearly eight hundred years the 
whole of western Europe had no other belief, and for 
just as long a period people laboured in vain to ex- 
plain the fact how, nevertheless, the sources from 
which every one acquired his knowledge of the fourth 
century on other points, viz., the Historia Tripartita^ 
the Chronicle of Jerome, and the Chronicle of Isidore, 
could be unanimous in stating that Constantine was 
baptized, not in Rome, but in a castle near Nicomedia, 
not by the pope, but by the Arian bishop Eusebius, 
not immediately on his conversion from heathenism, 
but only just before his death. 

It cannot be denied that according to the mode of 
thought and historic sentiment of the Middle Ages, 
the real facts must have appeared inconceivable, 
while the fabulous version, on the other hand, seemed 
perfectly natural and intelligible. The most impor- 



CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 89 

tant and decisive event of antiquity, the transition of 
the ruler of the world from heathenism to Christianity, 
— where else could this take place but in the capital 
of the world ? It must have been the Head of the 
Church who opened the doors of the Church to the 
Head of earthly sovereigns. And that the pious 
Constantine, the son of the sainted Helena, the 
founder of the Christian empire of Rome, should of 
his own accord have remained all his life long unbap- 
tized, not receiving the sacraments, and in reality 
having no claim even to the name of Christian, — that 
was a thing v/hich it was utterly impossible to be- 
lieve. 

A baptistery which bore the name of Constantine 
at a very early period, possibly because it was really 
built by his order, and at his cost, may have given 
the first occasion to the myth, in that people thought 
that it was so called because Constantine was baptized 
in it. For in later times it was considered as an irre- 
fragable and monumental witness to the truth of a 
circumstance which all were eager to believe. 

The legend of Sylvester, manifestly fabricated in. 
order to attest the fact of Constantine's having ] 
been baptized in Rome, cannot have been com- 
posed later than the close of the fifth century. It 
is all of one casting, and bears no traces of later 



90 CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER, 

additions. The Greek ^ text in which it is contained 
is evidently a translation from the Latin, which no 
doubt was written in Rome. ^ In the whole docu- 
ment there is not one historical trait to be found. 
Constantine is, to begin with, the enemy of the Chris- 
tians, and causes many of them — along with them his 
own wife — to be executed, because they will not offer 
sacrifice to idols, so that Sylvester flies to Mount 
Soracte. The emperor, struck with leprosy, is told 
that to be cured he must bathe in a pool filled with 
boys' blood newly shed ; but overcome by the tears 
of the mothers of these boys he rejects the horrible 
remedy, and is directed in a heavenly vision to apply 
to Sylvester. Sylvester heals him of his disease by 
means of Christian baptism ; whereupon the whole of 
Rome, senate and people, believe in Christ. Two 
episodes are interwoven with the story; the first 
respecting an enormous snake living under the Tar- 
peian Rock, and slaying thousands with its pestiferous 
breath, until Sylvester closes the entrance of its hole ; 
and secondly, a long disputation with the Jews 

1 Edited by Combefis in bis Illustr. Chr. Martymm lecti Triu'mphi^ 
Paris 1660. 

2 Tbis is sbowri by a passage quite at tbe beginning, in wbicb it 
is said of Eusebius : rfj p,7JiTjVLKri avveypaiparo yTiuaatj. Of course no 
Greek would bave made sucb a remark. 



CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER, 91 



(brought about by Helena), in which Sylvester comes 
off victorius. 

The author is acquainted with the ecclesiastical 
history of Eusebius. He intends (as he says at the 
outset) to complete the narrative of Eusebius ; but 
he either was not acquainted with the biography of 
Constantine, which gives an account of the baptism 
of the emperor, or at any rate he presupposed that 
his readers were not acquainted with it. And he 
actually did succeed in making his fable current, in 
spite of the decisive and unanimous witnesses of the 
fourth century. Even the Chronicle of Jerome, which 
people otherwise followed with unqualified assent in 
matters of history, was at last on this point superseded. 

The legend of Sylvester is mentioned for the first 
time in the decretal of Pope Gelasius (492-496), De 
L ibris Recipiendis et non Recipiendis, There it is said, 
*' the name or the author is indeed unknown,^ but it 
" has been said that it was read by many Catholics 
"in the city of Rome, and many churches imitated 
" this ancient custom." 2 It is manifest that these 

1 Cf . the double text in Fontanini De Antiquiiatihus Hortoe, Kome, 
1723, p. 322, and Credner's edition. 

2 " Pro antiquo usu." which means the ancient onstom of intro- 
ducing the writings used in Eome into other churches also. In 
another manuscript the reading is et pro hoc quoque usu multee 
" hasc imitantur ecclesia3." — See Credner, Zur Geschichte des Kanons, 
1847, p. 210. 



92 CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 

are not the words of Gelasius himself, and were 
not written in Rome, but elsewhere. The whole 
is a subsequent addition ; one of the many which 
gradually crept into the document in the period 
between A.D. 500 and 800. Nevertheless, the inven- 
tion of the legend must fall either within the time of 
Gelasius, or more probably soon after him, within the 
time of Symmachus, 498-514. For in the fictions 
which belong to the time of Symmachus, and which 
were called into existence by the circumstances 
relating to this pope, especially in the Constittitum 
Sylvestri and the Ge^^ta Liberii Papce, the baptism of 
Constantine at Rome, and his cleansing from leprosy, 
are mentioned with unmistakeable reference to the 
legend. And moreover, this is done so designedly 
and unnaturally as to betray the fact, that the legend 
of Sylvester excited the very gravest doubts, and 
therefore must be supported and confirmed. Above 
ail, it was intended to weaken the strength of such 
weighty evidence as that which Jerome, Ambrose, 
Prosper, and others afforded for the baptism of Con- 
stantine in the palace of Acyron, near Nicomedia; and 
therefore in the Gesta Liberii an emperor is invented, 
who is supposed to be the nephew of Constantine, 
and who is called in turn Constantine, Constantius, 
and Constans. Then, without any further occasion or 



CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 93 

any closer connection with the contents - of the 
document, it is asserted of this personage that he was 
baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia in Nicomedia, at 
the Villa Aquilo. Here everything is taken into ac- 
count : the change of name, as well as the transforma- 
tion of the son into a nephew of Constantine. This 
nephew takes it as a grievous affront that Liberius 
should say that his uncle was baptized by Sylvester, 
and thereby cleansed from his leprosy ; and he threat- 
ens that when he comes to Rome he will give the flesh 
of Liberius to the birds and beasts of prey. Hence it 
is the more probable— nay, certain, that the legend of 
Sylvester and the fiction of the baptism of Constantine 
at Rome became extant contemporaneously with the 
fables which were invented in the interests of Symma- 
chus and the Roman clergy of that time, that is to 
say, in 'he first few years of the sixth century. 

There was, however, still a considerable interval 
before the story passed into the chronicles, and from 
them into ecclesiastical literature generally. Isidore 
adhered to the historical version of the matter, and 
Fredegar also (A.D. 658) remained still true to the 
genuine account. Gregory^ of Tours (died A.D. 598) 

1 [In two of his three accounts of the baptism of Clovis by St. 
Kemigius, e.g. : " Procedit novus Constantinus ad lavacrum, dele- 
" turus leprse veteris morbum," &c. In the magnificent new edition 
of the Recueil des Historiens des Gaul .s et de la France (Palme, Paris, 



94 CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER, 



already alludes to the fable, and Bede (in the year 
729) is, properly speaking, the first who, by means of 
his chronicle, prepared the way for the introduction 
of the story of Constantine's baptism in Rome into 
the annals of the West ; ^ nevertheless he did not 
succeed for some time longer. Frekulf (about the 
year 840), who holds fast to good authorities in his 
Universal History^ abides by a baptism in Nicomedia 
at the end of the emperor's life. Even the painstaking 
Hermann the Lame of Reichenau (about A.D. 1050) 
seems to know nothing of the fable, and his contem- 
porary, Marianus Scotus, who follows Jerome as an 
authority, has still the correct version. ^ 

1869) there is the following interesting note, in loco: " Colb. ad 
" Marginem hsec habet, ab annis circ, 400 addita., JEcce iste Historio- 
* graphus concordat cum Eistoria St. Sylvestri de leprd Constantin* 
" mundatd in fonte baptismi. Et quidem certum videtur ex hoc loco> 
ubi etiam Chlodoveus Constantino et sanctus Remigiiis beato 
" Sylvestro comparantur, tunc temporis jam invaluisse opinionem de 
" baptizato Roma Constantino per beatum Sylvestrum, lepraque ejus 
« mundata " But in cod. Reg. this passage is left blank.] 

1 Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica Minora, ed. Stephenson, Lon- 
don, 1841, p. 81. [Bede does not dwell on the supposed event ; he 
mentions it merely in passing. " Constantinus fecit Eomse, ub^ 
" bapiizatus est, basilicam beati Joannis Baptistge, quse appellata est 
t' Constantiniana : item basilicam beato Petro in templo ApoUinis, 
"nec non et beato Paulo, corpus utriusque asre Cyprio circumdans v 
" pedes grosso," &c.] 

2 The reading " rebaptizatus " instead of " baptizatus " in a 
manuscript of Gemblours, on which Schelstrate lays great stress, is 
manifestly the correction of a copyist who believed in the baptism, 
at Rome. 



CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER, 95 

For the majority, however, the authority of the 
Liber PontificaliSy the Roman biographies of the popes, 
was irresistible. The fable of the baptism in Rome 
had already passed into the oldest list of the popes, 
one reaching back to the sixth century and in like 
manner into the enlarged collection which was based 
upon this one, the so-called Anastasius. In like 
manner Ado (died A.D. 875) inserts in his universal 
chronicle, which is based upon Bede, the fable of 
Constantine having been baptized in Rome, being 
misled by Bede, and by the Liber Pontificalis. He 
betrays the latter source by the long list of ecclesias- 
tical donations and buildings, which Constantine is 
said to have ordered in Rome, and which Ado bor- 
rowed from that Roman chronicle of the popes. On 
the other hand, Ordericus Vitalis (about A. D. 1 107), 
and Hugo of Fleury (in the year 1109), who in their 
ecclesiastical works narrate the whole fable, — leprosy, 
bath of children's blood and all — ^have drawn directly 
or indirectly from the legend of Sylvester ; while Otto 
of Freysing, though he 4eclares these details to be 
apocryphal, nevertheless holds fast to the baptism in 
Rome by Sylvester, " in accordance with the Roman 
*' tradition," as he says. 

The first critical attempt to remove the contradic- 
tion between the old and new versions of the story 



96 CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER, 

was made about the year iioo by Eccard, a monk 
in the monastery of Michaelsberg, and from iioS 
onwards abbot of the monastery of Aurach. The 
means which he employed were these. He trans- 
ferred the outrageous cruelty of Constantine, the 
execution of his nephew, of his son, his wife, and 
many friends, to the earlier part of the emperor's 
reign, after his victory over Licinus. Thereupon the 
Caesar is struck by God with leprosy, but baptized by 
Sylvester. He says, in conclusion : " Some persons 
*' maintain that Constantine fell into the Arian heresy, 
and was rebaptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia. The 
" church histories, however (that of Eusebius, namely, 
" of which Eccard made much use), do not state this, 
" but that he died in great sanctity." Eccard, there- 
fore, understood the version of Jerome to relate to a 
second baptism, by means of which Constantine got 
himself received into the sect of the Arians, — a means 
of getting out of the difficulty at which many since 
Eccard have caught. Nevertheless the author of the 
Magdeburg 1 Annals (written in the year 1 175), a 
monk in the monastery of Bergen, near Magdeburg, 
does not allow himself to be misled by the authority 
of Eccard, whom he otherwise uses as his basis. He 

1 Formerly known as Chronographus Sazo ; now as Annales Mag- 
deburg. ^ in Pertz's collection, xvi., p. 119. 



CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 97 

remains true to the version of the Ecclesiastic jlI His- 
tory (the Tripartita), that Constantine put off his 
baptism till the end of his life. 

Another variation is tried by the Italians, under 
the leadership of Bonizo, bishop of Sutri, and sub- 
sequently of Piacenza (died A.D. 1089), an authority 
not used by the Germans, In his history of the 
popes, 2 Bonizo had to choose between three accounts 
of Constantine's baptism. That is to say, besides the 
two ordinary accounts, he had also before him the 
one contained in a spurious decretal of pope Eusebius, 
now no longer extant, stating that this pope (and 
therefore in the year 310^) had already instructed, 
and baptized the emperor. The decretal was, of 
course, pure intention, in order that, by changing the 
Nicomedian into the Roman Eusebius, support might 
be got for the theory of Constantine's baptism in 
Rome, a theory of immense importance to the 
Romans. Bonizo will only allow the first half of the 
statement, considers the " baptizatum," as a vitiiim 
scriptorum, and gives it as his opinion, that after the 
instruction which he had received in Rome, Con- 
stantine postponed baptism on account oi the dis- 

2 It is found in the fourth book of his Libri Decreti, whence Mai 
gives it in the Nova Bibliotheca Fatrum, vii., P. 3, p. 39. 

3 [The papacy of Eusebius falls wholly within the year 310. J 



98 CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 

trading cares of government, receiving it at the 
hands of Sylvester, and not before. But he wholly 
denies the statement in the Tripartita Historia, that 
he was not baptized until the end of his life, and then 
into the Arian faith. None but a maniac could 
believe that, after the council of Nicsea, and after the 
circumstances of Arius' death, of which the emperor 
had been a witness, he still could have lapsed into 
Arianism. Bonizo goes so far as to claim the 
authority of the whole Church in favour of his 
opinion. " That Constantine was baptized by 
" Sylvester," he says, " is the undoubting belief of 
" the Catholic Church." And the Italian chroniclers 
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Sicard ^ , 
bishop of Cremona, and Romnald, ^ of Salerno, have 
copied him in this, the latter word for word. On the 
other hand, Gotfried of Viterbo, in his Pantheon, 
undismayed by the " mente captus" of Bonizo, avails 
himself of the hypothesis of an Arian re-baptism in 
Nicomedia. In this bishop Anselm of Havelberg 
(about the year 1 187) had already preceded him in 
his dialogues against the Greeks.^ Anselm was misled 
by another apocryphal writing, viz., a spurious 
History of Pope ^ Sylvester, forged under the name 

I 1 Miiratori, SS., vii., 555. 2 Ibid., vii., 78. 

3 In D' Archery's Spicilegium, nov. edit., i, 207. 

4 It exists in manuscript, according to D'Achery, in the library 



CONS TA NTINE AND SYL VES TER, 99 



of Eiisebius of Csesarea, and differing from the 
legend. 

Of great influence in the matter was the additional 
fact, that the popes also themselves made use of 
the apocryphal legend of Sylvester, and maintained 
Constantine's baptism at Rome as historical. Hadrian 
I., in the letter which was read at the second council of 
Nicsea, A.D. 787, quoted a long passage out of the 
legend as evidence of the primitive use of images. ^ 
Nicolas I. {S$^-^6y) cited a supposed passage from a 
pseudo-Isidorian letter which bore the name of 
Sylvester, with the distinctive title " Magni Con- 
stantini baptizator." ^ Leo IX., also, in the con- 
troversy with the Patriarch Caerularius, laid stress on 

of St. Germain. Eatramnus (in D'Achery, 1. c, p. 100) quotes a 
passage from it. It seems to have been forged, in order to defend 
Eoman claims and customs against the objections of the Greeks. 

1 In Harduin, iv., 82 [The gist of it is this. The apostles 
Peter and Paul appear to Constantino, and tell him to abandon the 
idea of the bath of blood, and seek out Sylvester in his exile on Mt. 
Soracte ; he will cure the emperor of his leprosy. Constantino goes 
to Sylvester, who produces images of SS. Peter and Paul, in order to 
prove to the emperor that the two who appeared to him in the 
vision were not gods, but these two apostles. Constantino recognises 
the likeness, is convinced and baptized, and proceeds to build and 
restore churches, which he takes care to adorn with images Com- 
pare the curious and very different version of the story given in the 
U'bis Romas Mirahilia^ reprinted from the Vatican manuscripts by 
Gustav Parthey, Berlin, 1869. J 

2 Ibid , v., 144. 



100 CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER, 

the fact that Constantine was the spiritual son of 
Sylvester by baptism. ^ 

Among the Greeks, Johannes Malalas, at Antioch, 
is the first who accepted the Roman baptism of 
Constantine ^ He lived at the end of the sixth century, 
and was certainly one of the least intelligent, and 
most prolific in fables, of all the Byzantine annalists. 
His authority may possibly have been the Greek 
translation of the legend of Sylvester, which had 
recently been made. It is true that he did not 
accomplish much in the way of introducing the fable, 
because his own work was not very widely dis- 
seminated. But seeing that Constantine was honored 
in the Greek Church as a saint, and that his festival 
was yearly celebrated on the 2ist of May, with the 
greatest ^ solemnity, especially in Constantinople, it 
gradually came to appear quite inconceivable to the 
Greeks, that he should, of his own accord, have 
remained all his life outside the pale of the Church, 
and should not have received baptism till he was on 
his death-bed. ^ Accordingly we find an author as 

1 Harduin, vi., 933 

2 Ed Dindorf, p. 317 

3 BoUand, ad 21 Mai, p. 13, 14. 

4 [In Consiautina's own age it was probably too common a case 
to provoke cither surprise or censure. A century later we find St 
Ambrose and St. Augustine postponing the reception of baptism 



CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. loi 



early as the abbot Theophanes (died A.D. 817) setting 
the Anatolian theory of the baptism in Nicomedia, 
by Eusebius, in opposition to the Roman theory of 
the baptism of Sylvester, but forthwith declaring that 
he considered the Roman account as the rnore correct ; 
for, of course, Constantine, if unbaptized, could not 
have taken his seat with the fathers at Nicaea, and 
could not have taken part in the sacred mysteries : to 
assert or suppose that he could, was to the last degree 
absurd. ^ Accordingly, if even the Byzantines, as 
early as the ninth century, had become so unfamiliar 
with the circumstances and true history of the fourth 
century, it cannot excite wonder that the later Greek 
historians should have considered the incorrect account 
as an established fact. And this is the case with the 
lately published Theodosius Melitenus, 2 Cedrenus, 
also Zonaras, Georgius Hamartolus, Glycas, and 
Nicephorus Callistus. 

Seeing, then, that all the chronicles of the popes 
subsequent to the Liber Pontijicalis, and based upon 
it, relate the baptism of Constantine at Rome, and 
that Martinus Polonus, with his predilection for what 

till they were over thirty years of age, long after they were con- 
vinced of the truth of Christianity. Stanley's Eastern Ckarch. Loot, 
vi., sub fin.] 

1 Ed. Classen, 1., 25. 

2 Chronographia, ed. Tafel., Monachii, 1859, p. 61. 



102 CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 

IS fantastic and distorted, has imported the Gesta 
Silvestri with its whole tissue of fables into his 
standard work, the fable maintained itself in un- 
questioned sovereignty throughout the Middle Ages ; 
until, with the re-awakening of the knowledge of the 
Greek language and literature, and of the critical 
historic sense, the two most advanced spirits of their 
age, -^neas Sylvius and Nicolas of Cusa, recognised 
the truth. ^ Nevertheless it needed still two centuries 
and more, before the powerful authorities which gave 
support to the fable were demolished. All the 
canonists kept fast to the theory of a Roman baptism 
for some time longer, for in the collections of canons 
by Anselm and Deusdedit, and, above all, in the 
Decretiim of Gratian (here indeed marked as "paleUy" 
that is, as a later insertion), bits out of the Gesta 
Silvestri found a place, and these presupposed the 
truth of the statement respecting the emperor's 
baptism. Hence the Cardinals Jacobazzi, Reginald 
Pole, Baronius, Bellarmine, and in later times even 
Ciampini himself, and Schelstrate, still continued to 
defend the theory of a baptism in Rome, sometimes 
again taking refuge in the desperate resource of an 
Arian re-baptism. It was the profound erudition 

1 Opera, Basil., 1551, p. 338. 



CONSTANTINE AND SYLVESTER. 103 



and historical criticism of French theologians which 
first enabled truth to win a complete victory. 

Besides all this, the legend of Sylvester was 
welcome material for the poetry of the Middle Ages. 
The venomous dragon, the disputation with the Jews, 
the slain ox, the emperor's leprosy, and its healing — 
all this is picturesquely described in the Kaiserchronik^ 
but with the greatest elaboration in the poem Sylvester^ 
by Conrad of Wurzburg. The Laekcnspieghel of Jan 
de Clerc, and the versified legends of the saints, avail 
themselves of it in like manner; and even Wolfram of 
Eschenbach alludes in the Parzival to the miracle of 
the ox raised to life again. 

[The exploded falsehood still lives on in that 
museum of exploded falsehoods — Rome. On the 
base of the ancient obelisk which adorns the piazza 
of St. John Lateran, an inscription in large capitals 
still states — 

CONSTANTINVS 
PER CRVCEM VICTOR 
A S. SILVESTRO HIC 
BAPTIZATVS 
CRVCIS GLORIAM 
PROPAGAVIT; 

and the czistode of the Baptistery is still allowed to 
tell all visitors, that in that building pope Sylvester 
baptized the emperor.] 



V. THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



The Liber Pontificalis enumerates a quantity of 
houses and pieces of land in various places, which 
Constantine is said to have given to the Church of 
Rome. The source alone renders these donations 
suspicious, one which has made such abundant use of 
the fictions of the age of Symmachus. And the 
suspicion increases when one remarks that so 
enormous a number of donations are attributed to 
Constantine alone, while the book does not mention 
a single other donation of any of the emperors who 
follow, until Justin and Justinian in the sixth century; 
and they are said to have given nothing more than 
cups and vessels. In addition to this there is the 
silence of all contemporary writers, and the circum- 
stance that Constantine, liberal as he proved himself 
;towards the Church, nevertheless, according to all 
accounts, never gave lands, but only made over to it 
rents or sums of money. Accordingly the author of 
the Vita Silvestri in the Liber Pontificalis appears to 
have attributed the whole amount of property, which 
had been gradually inherited or occupied, just as it 
existed in his own day (that is in the seventh or 
eighth century), exclusively to donations of Con- 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 105 

stantine. Indeed Assemani says that Hadrian I. 
ceitainly had documents of the donation of Con- 
stantine before him, for in his letter to Charlemagne 
in the year 775 he appeals to such as existing in the 
archives of the Vatican. However, if one looks closer, 
, Hadrian is speaking of donations in Tuscany, Spoleto, 
etc., which various emperors, patricians, and other 
pious persons had made to St. Peter and the Roman 
Church, but which the Lombards had taken away 
from it ; respecting these there are several docu- 
ments ^ still extant. Christian Lupus already remarks 
that Ammianus Marcellinus, up to the year 370, 
knows only of one source of papal property, viz., the 
offerings of matrons ; and that, accordingly, the 
Roman Church at that time was not yet in possession 
of large and rich patrimonies. ^ 

Until the middle of the eighth century there is not 
a trace to be found of the Donation which has since 
become so famous, by virtue of which Constantine, 
immediately after his baptism, and to show, his 
gratitude for the cure wrought by Sylvester, gave to 

1 Ital. Historic Scriptores Illustr.^ iii., 328. The statement of 
Gfrdrer is misleading {Gregor VII., vol. v., p. 6). He says that 
Baronius has "published several documents, by means of which 
Constantine conferred houses, lands, &c., on the three chief basilicas 
of Rome." What Baronius did was merely to print the passages 
from the Liher Pontificalis. 

2 Synodorum Gener. Decreia, &c., Bruxell, IGTl. iv., 397. 



io6 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



this pope and his successors, a number of the most 
comprehensive ecclesiastical and civil rights, and to 
the Roman clergy many honourable privileges, and, 
moreover, made over Rome and Italy to the pope. 

Here, then, at the outset we have these two ques- 
tions to answer. Where and when was this document 
forged ? 

We have it both in Latin ^ and in Greek. It does 

1 [" There is one old Latin text of it, but four Greek texts. See 
F. A. Bieaer, De coUectionibus cann. Ecclesix Groecse, Berol., 1827, 8, 
p. 72, ss. The first alone is of historical importance, being found in 
the pseudo-IsiJorian decretals under the title of Ediclum, domini 
Constant 'ni Imp , and extracts from it in the Decret. Gratiani dis'.j 
xcvi., c. 13." Gieseler, Ch'Urch Ilistory, ii , 117, 24*5, 356 ; New York 
edition. In the first letter of Hadrian I. to Charles the Great, a.d. 77 
{Cod Carol , No. 49), occurs the following : " Et sicuttemporibus b. 
" Sylvestri Rom Pont, a sanctJB recordationis piissimo Constantino 
" M, Imperatore per ejus largitatem sancta Dei catholica et apostolica 
" Romana ecclesia elevata atque exaltata est, et pot statem in his 
" Ilesperise jpartibus largiri dignatus est; ita et in his vestris 
" felicissimis temporibus, atque nostris S. Dei Ecclesia, i.e., b. 

Petri Apostoli, germinet atque exultet : quia ecce novus christianis- 
" simus Dei Constantinus Imperator his temporibus surrexit, per 
" quem omnia Deus sanctaa su£e Ecclesice bb. Apostolorum principis 
« Petri largiri dignatus est. Sed et cuncta alia, qu» per divcrsos 
" Imperatores, Patricios etiam et alios Deum timentes, pro eorum 
" animffi mercede et venia delictorum — b. Petro Apostolo— concessa 
"sunt, et per nefandam gentem Langobardorum per annorum 
" spatia, abstracta atque ablata sunt, vestris temporibus restituantur. 
'< Unde et plures donationes in sacro nostro scrinio Lateranensi 
" reconditas habemus," &c. Some think that we have here au 
allusion to the donation of Constantine, e.g. de Marca {De Cone. 
Sac, iii., 12), according to whom the Donation was forged, a.d. 767, 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 107 



not exist in the more ancient manuscripts of the 
legend of Sylvester, nor in the more ancient copies of 
Liber Pontificalis \ later on, however, it has been 
inserted into both. But it is certainly to be found as 
early as the most ancient manuscripts of the pseudo- 
Isidore collection, and was therefore at any rate com- 
posed before the year 850. 

That the Donation was a fiction of the Greeks, 
composed in Greek, and brought from the East to 
Rome, was indeed long ago maintained by Baronius. 
Next Bianchi ^ undertook to defend this view, on no 
better grounds, however, than the weak allegation, 
that is to be found in Balsamon ; and, lately, 
Richter 2 also has given as his opinion that it pro- 
bably originated in Greece./''' But from the Greek 
text, as well as from the contents of the document 
itself, the very opposite of this can be demonstrated 
to a certainty. 

At the very beginning of it Constantine speaks of 

" jussu Romanorum Pontiff : pia quadam inclustria." Ccnni, on the con- 
trary, shows {Monum. Donxin. Pontitf., i., 304) that Hadrian lias in view 
only the Acta Sdvestri^ to which he also refers in his letter to Con- 
stantine and Irene, and which in part suggested the later donation 
of Constantine. The words " potestatem in his Hesperite partihus 
largiri dignatus est" are especially remarkable in this connexion. 
Gicselcr, vol. ii., ch. 2 § 5,] 

1 Delia podestd. e polizia della chiesa, v., p. 1, 209. 

2 K rchenrecht, fifth edition, p. 77. 



io8 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



his "satraps," whom he places before the senate and 
the archons" (optimates). This expression does not 
occur in the Byzantines, but was of common use in 
Rome and with western writers ; for instance in the 
letter of pope Paul I. to Pepin ^ [A.D., 757], and in a 
document of king Ethelred, for Ealdorman. Moreover, 
the Greek translator has either read incorrectly or 
not understood the expression in the Latin, that "the 
" emperor had chosen St. Peter and his successors as 
"sure 'patroni' before God;" that is to say, he 
turns " firmos apud Deum patronos" into " primos 
" apud Deum patres," for he absurdly translates 

TtpcjTovg Trpbgrbv Qsbv TrarepagJ^ 2 

Again, if a Greek had composed the document, 
he would certainly, in mentioning the four Oriental 

1 " Ducem Spoletinum cum ejus Satrapibus.'* In Cenni, 3To- 
numenta, i., 15-i. In like manner King Luitprand sends, "Duces 
et Satrapas suos." Lib. Pontif. ed. Vignoli, ii., 63. [Not Paul's 
first letter to Pepin, in which he announces his election to the 
papacy as successor to his brother Stephen (for the election 
had been contested in favour of the Archdeacon Theophylact), but 
the second, in which he complains that the promised territory has 
not been ceded to the pipal see. Ealdorman, i.e., governor of a 
county, later earl. The history of the word is a curious one, sup- 
planted in its honourable meaning by the Danish " earl," living on 
itself as the less honourable <'aldermen."J 

2 From the addition koX 6s(j}sv(Tcopag we may be tolerably certain 
that, in the Latin original used by the translator, "patronos et 
" de/ensores" was the reading. 



THE DONATIO"^ OF CONSTANTINE. 109 

Thrones," have placed Constantinople not last, but 
first. Nowhere but in Rome would Constantinople 
have been mentioned last, for there, down to the 
time of Innocent III., recognition was persistently 
refused to the canons of the second and fourth 
general councils which settle the order of precedence 
for the patriarchates. On the other hand, the 
Byzantine tendencies of the translator are shown in 
that, though he retains the expression about the 
Lateran palace, " that it surpasses all palaces in the 

whole world," he nevertheless omits the distinction 
given to the Lateran chiLVch, that it is accounted 
" caput et vertex omnium ecclesiarum in universo 
" orbe terrarum." Equally characteristic is it that the 
passage about the possessions in Judaea, Asia, Greece, 
Africa, &c., which Constantine gives " pro con- 
" cinnatione luminarium" in the Roman churches, 
is left out in the Greek version, and the words 
" summus Pontifex et universalis urbis Romas Papa," 
are merely rendered "tw fj.eyd?M kKiaKOKu koX KaBoMK'^ TrdTra." 
Thus the title otKovueviKog^ which had been assumed by 
the patriarchs of Constantinople, and which would 
correspond far better than KadoliKog to universalis, is 
avoided no doubt intentionally, so that the whole title, 
according to the language in use in the Oriental 

Church, might have been applied equally well to the 

10 



no THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



bishop of Alexandria, who was also called ird-Ka , ^ as 
to the bishop of Rome. 

Further on we meet with a word never used by any 
Greek author with whom I am acquainted, KouvaovXoi 
for consuls, with the usual word vKaroi merely inserted 
alongside as explanatory. This can only be explained 
on the supposition that the text is a translation. And 
here the Greek text itself affords palpable evidence 
of a distorting of the original in a way which betrays 
the unlearned translator. The original ordains that 

1 [-mrat; or Ta-rra, Papa, was originally a general name for all 
Greek presbyters and Latin bishops ; but from an early age it was 
the special address which, long before the name of a patriarch or 
archbishop, was given to the bishop of Alexandria. " Pope of Alex- 
" andria" was a well-known dignity centuries before the bishops of 
Rome claimed an exclusive right to the title of pope. This was 
first done by Gregory VII., in a Council held at Home in 1076.'^ 
Stanley (Eastern Church, p. 113) gives the following curious ex- 
planation of the name : " Down to Hcraclas (a.d. 230), the bishop of 
" Alexandria, being the sole Egyptian bishop, was called * Abba' 
" (father), and his clergy ' Elders.' From his time more bishops 
" were created, who then received the name of ' Abba,' and con- 
" sequently the name of 'Papa' (ab-aha, pater patrum, grandfather) 
" was appropriated to the Primate. The Roman account (inconsistent 
" with fucts) is that the name was first given to Cyril, as represent- 
" ing the bishop of Rome in the council of Ephesus (Suicer, in 

voce) " He then adds other fantastic explanations : " 1 Poppocaj 
<' from the short life of each pope ; 2. Pa, for Pater; 3. Pap, suck ; 
" 4. Pap, breast; 5. Pa (Paul), Pe (Peter) ; 6. TraTra?! (admiration); 
" T. Pap^Sj keeper (Oscan) ; 8. Pappas, chief slave; 9, Pa(tcr) 

Pfl(triffi) ; 10. Pa, sound of a father's kiss. See Abraham 
<' Echellensis, De Origine Norn. Papoe, 60. It is a little difficult to 
believe that all of these are serious." 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. iii 



the Roman clergy shall have the same privileges as 
the imperial senate, namely, that its members become 
patricians and consuls, and so can attain to the very 
highest honours which the Byzantine kingdom has to 
bestow. Instead of this object, which expresses a 
wish of the Roman clergy, quite natural and not un- 
attainable under the circumstances of the time, the 
Greek text represents the emperor as making an 
enactment, the realisation of which no one could have 
seriously expected, namely, that to the Roman clergy 
generally should be attributed that pre-eminence and 
greatness, which the great senate, or the patricians, 
consuls, and other dignitaries possessed. Last of all 
comes the story that Constantine, holding the reins 
of Sylvester's horse, had performed the office of groom 
to Sylvester {oTpdrupog bf^'iKiov eiTOLrjaanEv) ^ a story which, 
both in its wording and circumstances, is unmis- 
takeably of western growth, alike foreign to oriental 
customs and oriental sentiment. This thing occurs 
for the first time in the year 754, when Pepin showed 
this mark of respect to Stephen III., who had come 
to visit him. ^ This act caused such great satisfaction 
in Rome, that it was forthwith transferred to Con- 
stantine, and made into a pattern and rule for kings 
and emperors. 

1 " Vice stratoris usque in aliquantnm loci juxta ejus sellarem 
" properavit." — Vita Sleph. in Vignoli, ii., 104. 



112 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



The chief passage in the document, the cession of 
Rome and Itaty or of the western regions to the pope, 
is correctly rendered in the text as^iven by Balsamon. 
On the other hand, it is wanting in other Greek 
recensions, especially in the one by Matthew Bias- 
tares ^ (about 1335), and in others given by Bou- 
langer and Fabricius,^ from a Parisian manuscript. 

This is not hard to explain. The fictitious Dona- 
tion has acquired a high canonical authority among 
the Greeks. Since Balsamon's time it has taken its 
place among a mass of manuscripts respecting Greek 
ecclesiastical rights ; ^ and Greek eyes, usually so 
keensighted for the discovery of Latin forgeries,"" were 
in this case so blinded, that they readily accepted the 
palpable forgery, and set to work to make capital out 
of it in practice. Blastares quite goes into raptures 
over it. " Nothing more pious or more worthy of 

1 Beveridge, Pandectse Canonum, i., p. 2, p. 117. But the Latin 
translator has made a laughable perversion of the sense, making the 
emperor say, " Placuit ut Papa ab urbe Eoma et occidentalibus 
" omnibus provinciis et urbibus exiret." 

2 Biblioth. Gr. ed. nov. vi,, 699, 

3 They are for the most part enumerated in Biener De Collectioni- 
hus Canonum Eccles. Grozcoe., 1827, p. 79. In the Vienna Codex, 
which Lambecius describes Comment., lib. viii., p. 1019, nov. ed., 
the remark is added. Trape^e^TirjdTj and rov dyvcurdrov Trarpidpxov 
cravTLvoviroTieug Kvpov (pcoriov ravra. A man so well read as Photiua 
in literature and history, of course perceived not only the unau- 
thenticity of the document, but also the object of the fiction. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 113 



" reverence is to be seen anywhere," he says, " nothing 
which better deserves to be proclaimed far and 
" wide." This satisfaction rested on a very simple 
calculation. The canon of the second oecumenical 
synod of 381, that palladium of the Byzantine Church, 
enacts that the bishop of Constantinople shall have 
the privileges of the bishop of Rome, and (as was 
further concluded) that the clergy of new Rome shall 
have, in like manner, all the rights of the clergy of 
old Rome. Therefore, says Balsamon, and this was 
the opinion of the clergy of the capital, all in the way 
of honors, dignity, and privileges, which Constantino 
had showered on the clergy of old Rome with so 
prodigal a hand, holds good also for the clergy and 
patriarch of new Rome. Another and later imperial 
enactment, also cited by Balsamon,^ serves to confirm 
this, viz., that Constantinople shall enjoy, not merely, 
the privileges of Italy, but those of Rome itself. The 
emperors themselves accepted the objects at which 
this document was aimed, at any rate those which 
had reference to the relations between ecclesiastical 
and civil dignities. Thus Michael Palceologus, in the 
year 1270, wrote to direct the patriarch, that whereas 
he, the emperor, had appointed the deacon Theodore 
Skutariotes to the office of Dikaeophylax (supreme 

1 Cf. tit. 1, c. 36, p. 38, tken tit. 8, c. 1, pp. 85, 89, ed. Paris, 1620. 



114 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



judge or custos justiticE)^ the said deacon should also 
be invested with an equivalent ecclesiastical dignity, 
namely, that of an exokatakoilos (that is an assessor 
of the patriarch with the right of precedence of the 
bishops) according to the terms of Constantine's 
rescript to Sylvester.^ 

Moreover, the Donation was acknowledged in the 
West centuries before it was Icnown and noticed by 
the Greeks. The lately-published Georgius Hamar- 
tolus 2 (about the year 842) recounts the fables con- 
nected with the legend of Sylvester in considerable 
detail, but does not say a single word about the 
Donation. On the contrary, he represents the em- 
peror as giving up the West to his sons Constantius 
and Constans, and to his nephew Dalmatius, intending 
to make Byzantium his own place of residence. The 
first Byzantine who mentions and makes use of the 
Donation is Balsamon, who died patriarch of Antioch 
in the year 1 1 80, that is at a period when the Greeks 
had long since lost every foot of territory in Italy, 
and the giving away of Italy to the papal chair was a 
matter perfectly harmless so far as they at least were 
concerned. But at that time the Latins had for long 

1 Novelloe Constitutiones Imjperatorum post Justinianum, ed. Zacha- 
rias, 1857, p. 592. 

2 Qhronicon ed. E. de Muralto, Petropoli, 1859, p. 399. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 115 



been paramount in Syria, and it was from them 
probably that Balsamon got the document. 

The Donation of Constantine, therefore beyond all 
doubt was composed in the West,^ in Italy, in Rome, 
and by a Roman ecclesiastic. The time of its appear- 
ance points to the same conclusion. 

The date at which the Donation of Constantine 
was composed may be placed with overwhelming 

1 [The author of Der Papst und das Coneil entirely concurs in. 
this conclusion, placing the date of it a little before 754, it having 
been obviously composed with a view to being shown to Pepin. 
« There can be no doubt as to the Roman origin of the ' Donation.' 
" The Jesuit Cantel has rightly recognised this in his Ilht. Metrop. 

Urh., p. 195. He thinks that a Roman subdeacon, John, was the 
''author. The document had a threefold object— against the 
*' Lombards, who were threatening Rome, against the Greeks who 
''would acknowledge no imperium of the Roman see over their 

church, and also with a view to the Franks. The attempt of the 
"Jesuits in the Civilid. to make a Frank the author merely because 

iEneas of Paris and Ado of Vienna mention the Donation in the 
" ninth century, is scarcely worth serious discussion ; it condemns 
"itself. The closest agreement in style and thought exists between 
" the Donation and contemporary Roman documents, especially the 
*' Constituium Pauli i. (Harduin Coneil iii., 1999 ff.), and the Epistola 
*^S. Petri, composed in 753 or 754, about the same time as the 
" Donation, The expression * Concinnatio luminarium,' which 
" occurs in papal letters of that age, in the Constitutum Pauli and 
" the Donatio, and nowhere else, betrays at once a Roman hand. So 
" do the form of imprecation and threat of hell-tormenis, exactly as 
"in the Comtilulum and the Epistola S. Petri; and the term 
" ' Satrapje ' wholly foreign to the West, and occurring only in the 
•'Donation and contemporary - papal letters. See Cenni, Monum, 
^^JDomimt. Ponli/., i., 154." Janus, iii., note 103 ] 



4 



Ii6 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



probability in those years which extend from the time 
when the power of the Lombard kingdom began to 
decline, i. e., from about A.D. 752,1 ^-q ^j^g year 777, in 
which pope Hadrian first makes mention of the gift 
of Constantine. Earlier than that the author could 
not well expect any result from his invention. /What 
he aimed at was a great kingdom embracing the 
whole of Italy under the rule of the pope, instead of 
an Italy divided between the Lombards and the 
Greeks, in which Rome was perpetually exposed to 
the attacks of the one and the maltreatment of the 
other. In Rome the rule of the Greeks, however 
oppressive it might be at times, was always preferred 
to that of the Lombards. The latter dominion was 
considered as the greatest of all evils, while the 
emperor and exarch of Ravenna received, on the whole, 
willing obedience in Rome. The popes were far 
from wishing to overthrow the Byzantine dominion 
in Italy, even when its yoke seemed intolerable, as 
for example, under the two iconoclasts Leo and Con- 
stantine Copronymus. Even when the opportunity 
presented itself, they still did not wish to overthrow it. 
At any rate, between 685 and 741, we see ten popes 

1 [The year of Pepin's accession; in 755 he was besieging the 
Lombards in their own capital. Astolph yielded at once, and ceded 
the whole of the contested territdiy to Pepin and the Pope. Cf 
Milman, Latin Christianity hk. iv., chap, xi.] 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 117 



follow one another, all of whom, with one exception, 
were either Syrians (John V., Sergius, Sisinius, 
Constantine, and Gregory III.), or Greeks (Conon, 
John VI., John VII., and Zacharias). This fact alone 
is sufficient to show that Byzantine influence in Rome 
was still quite predominant.^ And the one Roman 
amongst them, Gregory II., did all that lay in his 
power to keep down the Italians (who were embittered 
by Leo's tyrannical persecution of image-worship, and 

1 [N'och vollig tiberwiegend war." Some might think this 
expression rather too strong of the period between 716 and 741. 
Gregory II. (716-713) begins a new era in the papacy. His imme- 
diate predecessor Constantine " was the last pope who was the 
"hnmble subject of the Eastern Emperor." Gregor3^'s opposition to 
Leo the Isanrian on the subject of iconoclasm is quite uncompro- 
mising. His letters to the emperor on the question are arrogant 
and defiant, almost brutal in tone. "Neque judicium Dei reformi- 
" dasti, quum scandala in hominum corda, non fidelium modo, sed 
"ct infidelium, ingruercnt." *' Tu mundum totum scandal izasti, 
" ut qui mortem noils subire, et infelicem rationem reddere." 
" Ingredere rursum ad veritatem, unde exivisti ; excnte spiritus 
"elatos, et pertinaciam tolle ; atque adomnes scribe quoquoversum ; 
" cosque quibus offendiculo fitisti, erige, quosque excascasti ; tametsi 
" pra3 nimiu tuu, stupiditate illud pro nihilo habes." " Scripsisti ut 
"concilium univei'sale cogerctur; et nobis inutilis ea res visa est 
" Tu persecutor es imaginum, et hostis contumeliosus et eversor. 
"Cessa, nobis hoc largire ut taceas : tum mundus pace perfruetur, 
"et scandala ccssabunt." Gregory concludes this long and offensive 
letter with a pi-ayer that God will drive out from the Emperor's heart 
the evil beings which dwell there. Harduin Acta Goncil.^ iv., 1. 
The second letter is also strong in language. Gregory III. during 
his briefer pontificate (731-741) maintained the inflexible opposition 
of his predecessor.] 



Ii8 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 

had already begun to think of electing a Roman 
emperor of their own), under the yoke of subjection. 
He caused a rebellion which had broken out against 
Byzantium to be put down by Roman troops, and 
had the head of the ringleader of the rebels sent to 
Constantinople. The popes always regarded as a 
calamity every conquest which the Lombards made 
in Italy at the expense of Greek dominion; a calamity 
which they zealously strove to avert by prayers and 
remonstrances, as well as by personal intercession 
with the Lombard kings. They had clearly and fully 
recognized the fact, that when the possession of the 
exarchate should have strengthened Lombard power 
and Lombard craving for the possession of the whole 
peninsula, then the decree for their own subjection, 
and that of Rome, under this detested dominion, would 
be already sealed. 

How powerful the fear of the Lombards and the 
aversion to them must have been in Rome, may be 
seen from the fact that Byzantine dominion was 
always considered preferable there ; although, as- 
suredly, neither the popes nor the Roman clergy had 
had so much to endure at the hands of the Lombards 
as at the hands of the Greeks. True, they had to 
bear heavy exactions, owing to the avarice of the 
exarchs, to one of whom even the sacred vessels 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 119 

belong-ing to St. Peter's had to be given as pledges 
(about the year 700). True, that if ever the emperor's 
suspicions were excited in Byzantium, the popes must 
submit to be summoned thither to answer for them- 
selves ; as Sergius is said to have been brought thither 
at the command of Justinian IL, and pope Constan- 
tine, in the year 709, was compelled to obey the sum- 
mons of the emperor to Nicomedia in Asia, while the 
exarch John caused four leading ecclesiastics to be 
executed ^ in Rome. For all that the antipathy to 
the Lombards was paramount. The reason for this 
hatred was, as it seems, mainly the Lombards' 2 
barbarous mode of warfare, the perpetual ravaging, 
firing, and burning, which threatened to change the 
beautiful peninsula at last into an unproductive 
uninhabited wilderness. Not until the incapacity or 
disinclination of the Greeks to protect the provinces 
of Italy against the Lombards compelled the Italians 
to renounce the hopes and wishes they had hitherto 
entertained, did they throw themselves into the strong 
arms of the Franks. But even as late as 752 Stephen 

1 Vita Constantini, ed. Yignoli, ii , p. 9. 

2 [The Lombard host contained various wild Teutonic or Sclavo- 
nian hordes. Their wars with the Franics kept them somewhat in 
check, otherwise they might have dev^asted Italy still more. Com- 
pare the story of Alboin pledging his adulterous queen Eosraundain 
a cup made of her father's skull, and the tragical end of both.] 



120 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



IV. had made another appeal to the Greek emperor,^ 
imploring him to appear with an army for the defence 
of Italy against the Lombards. 

After the year 728 Gregory II. made an attempt to 
form a confederation of cities, which was to maintain 
itself independently alike of the Greeks and of the 
Lombards; the head and centre of it was to be the 
papal chair. ^ The plan came to nothing. In Rome, 
however, the idea ripened more and more, that the 
power of the pope might come forward in Italy and 
take the place of the decaying power of the Greeks, 
and the reluctantly tolerated power of the Lombards; 
and hence this document of the Donation was forged, 
to represent this as the normal condition of things, 
planned long ago by the first Christian emperor. 
Whether this was before the donation of Pepin or 
after it, can now no more be decided ; but at any rate 
it was before the founding of the Prankish kingdom 
of Italy, and therefore before 774. For after this was 
established all prospect of realising a union of Italian 
states fell to the ground, and then the fiction of the 
Donation would have ceased to have any object. 
But it may very well have been com.posed soon after 

1 [This statement somewhat qualifies what is said in Essay vni. 
of G-regoiy being well aware that Italian states could not stand 
without Byzantine support ; and, least of all, the Eoman.] 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 121 



the giving up of the exarchate through Pepin, in order 
to prepare the way for claims to the whole of Italy, 
and to give them an historical basis against the day 
when the internal weakness of the Lombard kingdom 
should end in complete disintegration. And so, not 
long after this, in the time of Charlemagne,^ a docu- 
ment was forf^ed, in which, in very wild, and in some 
places scarcely intelligible Latin, a detailed narrative 
is put into the mouth of king Pepin of all that had 
taken place between him, the Greeks, the Lombards, 
and pope Stephen ; and it then makes Pepin give 
nearly the wh ole of Italy (V enetia and Istria included) 
to the pope, either there and then, or (as in the case 
of Beneventum and Naples) by promising them when 
they should be conquered. 2 

The pseudo-Isidore, as has been noticed already, 

1 In Fantuzzi ; Documenti Eavennaii, n., 265. 

2 Instead of the emperor Constantine, Pepin talks of the emperor 
Leo (the Isaurian is intended), saying that Leo's ambassador, Ma- 
rinus, had come to him. Here there is a confusion of the presbyter, 
Marinus, sent from Eome to Pepin, and that Spatharius Marinus, 
whom Leo had sent to Italy with the commission to put pope 
Gregory II. out of the way. The document, moreover, makes the 
Greek emperor g're the pope formal leave to choose out a protector, 
with whom he oould then decide as seemed best respecting the 
Eoman duchy an 1 the exarchate. It is manifestly invented with a 
double object, fir .t, by supplying the consent of the Byzantine court 
to do away with n legal objection ; and, secondly, to bring about an 
enlargement of the donation of Charles the Great. 

11 



122 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



t incorporated the Donatipn of Constantine into his 
collection as an ancient document ; and it certainly is 
found in all known manuscripts. The pseudo-Isidore, 
undoubtedly, did not compose it himself, although 
this has lately been supposed by Gregorovius.y^The 
contents and purpose of the fiction v/ere altogether 
alien to the West- Prankish author of the False Decre- 
tals. The language also is different from his. But it 
is equally untenable, on the other ha ad, that it did 
not come into existence till the tenth century, as the 
Oratorian Morin attempted to show. His main 
argument is, that Otho III., in his deed of gift of the 
year 999, mentions a deacon John with the sobriquet 
** Digitorum mutius," (i.e. mutilus, mozr,o^ as the man 
who wrote the document in golden letters in Constan- 
tine's name. This John the deacon, Morin supposes, 
is the man whom John XII. first used as his tool, and 
^ then, in the year 974, caused his right hand to be cut 
off. 2 A mistaken idea ; for a man who had lost his 
right hand would not have been called "with mutilated 
fingers," as a sobriquet. Moreover, the Donation of 
Constantine may very well have been extant at an 

1 GescMchte der Stadt Rom., iii., 400. Cenni had anticipated him 
in maintaining this, and that ' ' plaudentibus nostri £evi eruditis," as 
he thinks. Ilonum., i., 305. 

2 According to Luitprand, Hist. Ottonis^ in Pertz, v., 346, and 
Contin. Reginon.^ ad a. 964. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 123 

earlier period, before John the deacon, of whom the 
draughtsman of Otho's document makes mention, 
wrote it out in golden letters, in order to invest it with 
greater dignity. 

An analysis and closer consideration of the contents 
of the document will give a still higher degree of 
certainty to the supposition that it originated in 
Rome between 750 and 774. 

. The following are among the grants made in the 
Donation to the popes and the Roman clergy : — 

1. Constantine desires to promote the Chair 
of Peter over the empire and its seat on earth, by 
bestowing on it imperial power and honour. 

2. The, Chair of Peter shall have supreme 
authority over the patriarchal Chairs of Alexan- ' 
dria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, and 
over all churches in the world.i 

3 It shall be judge in all that concerns the 
service of God and the Christian Faith.^ 

1 [" Ut principatum teneat tarn super quatuor sedes, Alexandria- 
"nam, Antiochenam, Hierosolymitanam ac Constantinopolitanam, 

qiiamque etiam super omnes in universe orbe terrarum ecclesias." 
As cited by Leo IX,, Harduin, vi., 935.] The Greeks have omitted 
this article in the recension in Blastares, and in that of the Parisian 
manuscript. 

2 This article also is wanting in both the above-mentioned texts. 
[Leo IX., of course, retains it, " et ejus judicio quasque ad cultum 
"Dei vel fidei Christianorum stabilitatem procuranda fuerint, dis- 
" ponantur."] 



124 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



4. Instead of the diadem, which the emperor 
wished to place on the pope's head, but which 
the pope refused, Constantine has given to him 
and to his successors the phrygium ^ (that is the 
tiara) and the lorum which adorned the emperor's 
neck, as well as the other gorgeous robes and 
j'nsignia of the imperial dignity. 

5. The Roman clergy shall enjoy the high 
privileges of the imperial senate, being eligible 
to the dignity of patrician or consul, and having 
the right to wear the decoration worn by the 
(optimates or) nobles in office under the empire. ^ 

6. The offices of cubicularii, ostiarii, and 
excubits, shall belong to the Roman Church. 

7. The Roman clergy shall ride on horses 
decked with white coverlets, and, like the senate, 
wear white sandals. 

1 [Leo IX. says, at first, both the diadem and the phrygium : 
*'deiiide diadema, videlicet coronam capitis nostri, simulque 

phrygium, necnon et superhumerale, videlicet lorum quod imperiale 
t* circumdare assolet collum." But later on, after mentioning Sylves- 
ters refusal of the gold crown, " phrygium autem candido nitore, 
''splendidam resurrectionem Dominicam designans, ejus sacrat- 
"issimo vertici manibus nostris imposuimus, et tenentes frenum 
"equi ipsius, pro reverentia beati Petri, &c."] 

2 Imperialis militia, arparia, which Miinch (On the Donation of 
Constantine, p. 22) translates as "the imperial army," remarking 
that the Roman clergy had been desirous of wearing military deco- 
rations. A glance at Duncange's Glossary would have told him what 
^'militia " or " orpana " meant at that time [viz., court officials]. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 125 

8. If a member of the senate shall wish to take 
orders, and the pope consents, no one shall hinder 
him. 1 

9. Constantlne gives up the remaining sove- 
reignty over Rome, the provinces, cities, and 
towns of the whole of Italy or of the western 
regions, to pope Sylvester and his successors. 

Judging from the detailed and careful manner in 
which each single clause is treated, we may conclude 
that the author, who beyond all doubt was a Roman 
ecclesiastic, had the articles and colour of the dress 
proper to the pope and clergy, with their titles and 
insignia of rank, far more at heart than the ninth 
clause which, tacked on at the end and expressed in 
few words, was so pregnant with consequences, the 
Donation of Rome and Italy, And here one must at 
the same time remember, that the composer intended 
Italy alone, and not almost the whole of the West 
which belonged to the kingdom of Rome at the time 
of Constantine, that is to say, Gaul, Spain, Britain, etc., 
to be comprehended in the Donation as well as Italy. 
In all probability he knew nothing of the real extent 
of the empire at the time of Constantine, but had only 

1 So the Greek text. The Latin reading "nuUus ex omnibus 
"praesumat superbe agere " makes no kind of sense with the context 
just preceding,. 



126 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTTNE, 



the circumstances of the eighth century before his 
eyes, for he says " Italy or the western regions/* 
doubtless merely to define more closely the geograph- 
ical expression " Italy," and to include Istria, Corsica, 
and Sardinia. Not until a later age was the ''or'* 
changed into " and^ And for long the matter was so 
understood. The popes ^ Hadrian I. and Leo IX, 
the emperor Otho III. and cardinal Peter Damiani 
found in the document merely the donation of Italy. 

If one considers the remaining clauses, that is to 
say, the demands and wishes of Roman ecclesiastics 
clad in the form of supposed concessions, one sees 
that they altogether have reference to the state of 
affairs in Rome and Italy about the middle of the 
eighth century. The author naturally has not so 
much the arrangement and relations of rank in Con- 
stantinople before his eyes, as those of that part of 
Italy which at that time was still Byzantine. The 
senate, with which the clergy in Rome wished to be 
placed on an equality in certain privileges, was no 

1 [" Et sicut temporibus beati Sylvestri Eomani PontificiS; a sanctas 
" recordationis piisimo Constantino Imperatore, per ejus largitatem 
sancta Dei Catholica et Apostolica Romana Ecclesia elevata atque 
"exaltata est, et potestatem in his HesperiEe partibus largiri 
dignatus est, &c., &c." Letter of Hadrian I. to Charles the Great.— 
Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France^ ap. Palme, Paris, 1869, 
v., 550, c] 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 127 

longer the old Roman senate. That had perished in 
the sixth century, during the wars with the Goths and 
the Lombards. The senate is never mentioned ^ in 
the period from the end of the sixth to the middle of 
the eighth century, but reappears first in the year 757 
as the collective body of the Roman optimates. ^ 
After that time we have mention made of a special 
place for the senators [senatorium] in the two chief 
churches in Rome. Those who sat there received 
the holy communion from the hands of the pope 
himself. ^ It was, in fact, a new official nobility which 
was formed, partly out of the military aristocracy of 
citizens, partly out of ecclesiastical dignitaries ; and 
the latter were also to have their share — this was one 
of the objects which the author of the fiction had in 
view — in the highest titles of honour which the 
emperors granted to certain pre-eminent members of 
the civil, or rather military aristocracy. 

The ranks of patrician and consul^ for instance, 
which were to be made accessible to the Roman 

1 Savigny's assertions (^Geschichte des Rom. Eechis, i., 367) are on 
this point too strong ; that in all centuries, as he says, are to be 
found undeniable traces of the real continuance of the Eoman senate 
is, at any rate, without foundation as regards the period between 
G60 and 750. 

2 " Salutant vos et cunctus procerum senatus, atque diversi 
« populi congregatio." Cenni, ii., 146. 

3 Mabillon, Mus, Ital., ii., xliv., lix., 10. 



128 THE DONA TION OP CONSTANTINE. 



clergy, were at that time the highest at which 
ambition ^ could aim. A patrician, ^ of member of 
the imperial Privy Council, was promoted to his rank 
by being solemnly invested with an embroidered 
robe of state ; and even governors of provinces felt 
themselves raised in dignity by the addition of this 
title, the highest in the empire. From the year 754 
onwards the pope, in the name of the Roman republic 
(which still continued to be considered as always 
virtually existing), and with the acquiescence of the 
Roman people, claimed to have the pov/er of confer- 
ring the title of " patrician of Rome and gave it, as 
is well known, in the first instance to king Pepin and 
king Carloman. ^ Thus the highest temporal dignity 

1 In the Vita Agathonis, Vignoli, i., 279, we have the high digni- 
taries thus reckoned: "Patricii, Hypati cum omni Syncleto." In 
the year 701 Theophylact was Cubic ularius, Patricius, Exarchus 
ItalisB, ibid^ i., 315. 

2 [This new rank of patrician was created at Constantinople, and 
was not conferred on old Koman families. It was a personal, not an 
hereditary dignity, and became extinct with the" death of the holder. 
A patrician family at this period meant one, of which the head was 
a patrician. The patricians were the highest of the illustres ; consuls 
alone ranked higher. A patrician was distinguish ctd by such titles 
as Magnificentia, Celsitudo, Eminentia, and Magnitudo. The new 
dignity was not confined to subjects of the empire, but was some- 
times given to foreigners, such as Odoacer. "Dther sovereigns 
imitated the emperors and popes in conferring this title on eminent 
subjects, but such patricians ranked far below Roman patricians. 
Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, "Patricii," sub fin.] 

3 ["In the meantime the right of conquest, and the indefinite 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 129 

in Rome, after that of emperor or a Caesar, was to be 
in the pope's gift, and that withoiut any theoretical 
infringement of the imperial prerogative. When the 
Greek dominion perished in north and central Italy, 
the patriciate, as a dignity conferred on particular 
governors, vanished along with it, and there remained 
only the one Roman patriciate, the chief dignity 
among the inhabitants of the city of Rome. 

The consuls also, as Savigny ^ has remarked, were 
first mentioned in the middle of the eighth century, 
and constituted the rank next to the patricians. The 
chief city magistrates bore this title, one, however^ 
which thenceforward occurs merely as a title of 
honour. One such consul (and dux) was Theodatus, 
the tutor of Hadrian L, and afterwards primicerius of 
the Roman Church. His contemporary Leoninus, in 
like manner, was at the same time both consul and 
dux, afterwards a monk. ^ 

Further use of Constantine's name was made to 
obtain for the popes the right of having gentlemen of 
the bed-chamber, door-keepers, and a body-guard 

title of patrician, assigned by the pope (Stephen), acting in behali^ 
and with the consent of the Koman republic, to Pepin — title which 
might be merely honorary, or might justify any authority which he 
might have power to exercise — gave a kind of supremacy to the king 
of the Franks in Rome." — Milman, Lat. Chr.^ iv., c. xi.] 

L A., a., 0., p. 370. He quotes Fantuzzi, Mon. Bav., i., 15. 

2 Vita ffadr., in Vignoli, ii., 162, 210. 



130 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



(cubicularii, ostiarii, excubitores). Here again the 
date fits exactly. . Formerly in Italy there were only 
imperial cubicularii. Not until the time of Stephen 
IV. and Hadrian 1. do we find an instance of a papal 
cubiailaritis, viz., Paul Afiarta, ^ who at the same time 
was superista^ that is, overseer of the palace. In 2 the 
first Ordo Romamis in Mabillon, who describes the 
Roman ceremonial at the end of the eighth and begin- 
ning of the ninth century, the cubicularius tonsuratus, 
who had to carry the papal robes, is mentioned for 
the first time. 

In the Roman Ordo of Cencius (twelfth century) 
the portarii or ostiarii pro mstodiendo palatio were 
placed in the second rank under the Roman scholae 
or guilds of the papal court servants, and described 
according to their duties. ^ Lastly, the excubitores are 
unmistakeably the so-called adextratores of a later 
age, a guard of honour, ^ which escorted the pope in 
processions and visits to churches. 

The author of the Donation manifestly attached 
great importance to the point, that the Roman 

1 That he was cubicularius of the pope, and not of the emperor, 
is plain from the Vita Hadr.^ in Vignoli, ii., 164 and 166 ; for in 
other instances the Liher Pontificalis adds imperialism as in the case 
of Theodore Pellarius, ib. i., 263. 

2 Mus. Ital., ii., 6. 

3 1. c, p. 194, 96. 

4 I. c, p. 196. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 131 

clergy should have the privilege of decking their 
horses with white coverings , — altogether in harmony 
with the spirit of the time and place, where this was 
considered as a thing of extraordinary importance, and 
as a precious privilege of the Roman clergy sur- 
passing all others. Hence Gregory the Great had 
before this notified the archbishop of Ravenna, that 
the Roman clergy would on no account concede that 
the use of horse-coverlets {mappulce) should be allowed 
to the clergy of Ravenna. ^ The Roman biographer 
finds great fault with pope Conon, because (about 
A.D. 687) he had allowed the deacon Constantine of 
Syracuse, whom he had nominated rector of the 
patrimony there, to make use of such a coverlet. ^ 

Lastly, the object attributed to Constantine is 
altogether in accordance with the seiitiments of the 
eighth century, viz., that he endowed the Roman 
Church with possessions in the East and West, in 
order that the lamps and tapers which burnt in the 
churches and at the tombs of the Apostles St. Peter 
and St. Paul might be kept up by the revenues. And 
thus pope Paul I. writes to Pepin, in the year 761, 
saying that the contest which the king had under- 

1 Greg. M. Opera, ii., 668, ed. Paris, cf. Gratian. Decrx.^ dist. 93, 
c. 22. ■ 

2 Vit. Conon. ap. Vignoli, i., 301. 



132 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 

taken against the Lombards was waged by him for 
the restoration of the lamps of St. Peter. 

Both internal and external evidence, therefore, 
conducts us to the period between 750 and 775 as 
the time when the Donation of Constintine came 
into existence. The supposition of Natalis Alexander 
and of his follower Cenni, ^ that it was not known in 
Rome before the middle of the ninth century, is 
certainly incorrect. Hadrian I. undeniably alludes 
to it in the words that Constantine had "given the 
dominion in these regions of the West" to the Romish 
Church. These are the " occidentalium regionum 
provinciae {6va[X(bv x(->p(^v kirapxiaty^ of which the Donation 
speaks. Nevertheless, it is quite certain that at first 
no pains were taken to make it generally known. 
From Hadrian 1. to Leo IX. (776 to 1053) there is no 
trace of it to be found in the letters of popes ; in the 
older manuscripts of the Liber Pojiiificalis there is no 
mention of it ; but by means of the pseudo-Isidore 
(that is from 840 onwards), it began to be known 
outside Italy, and indeed perhaps more in France 
than in Italy itself. For though Luitprand, bishop 
of Cremona, as imperial ambassador at Byzantium 

3 Cenni,!., 185: "Pro cujus restituendis luminariis decertatis." 
So also the pseudo-Constantine, " Quibus pro coucinnatione lumina- 
" rium possessiones contulimus." 

4 MonunUf i., 304. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 133 

boasted of the large donations which Constantine had 
given to the Roman Church, in Persia, Mesopotamia, 
and Babylonia ; yet he knew nothing of the contents 
of the forged document, or at any rate, gave no hint of 
it ; while, on the other hand, two men who for their 
age were so learned and so well read in ecclesiastical 
history and literature as ^neas, bishop of Paris, and 
Hincmar, bishop of Rheims, readily accepted it. The 
former of them (about the year 868) represents to the 
Greeks that Constantine had declared that two 
emperors, the one of the realm, the other of the 
Church, could not rule in common in one city. He 
had therefore removed his residence to Byzantium, 
but had placed the Roman territory, " and a vast 
number of various provinces," under the rule of the 
Apostolic chair, and had conferred royal power ^ on 
the pope. Hincmar expresses himself with more 
reserve. He and his contemporary bishop Ado, of 
Vienne, in his chronicle (about 860), know only of 
Constantine's having given up the city of Rome to the 
pope. 2 

Pope Leo IX. recounted nearly the whole text of 
the Donation to the patriarch Michael Cerularius 
in the year 1054, openly and confidently, without 

1 Liher adversus Grseco'^^ in D'Achery, Spicil.^ vii., iii. 

2 Epist. 3, c. 13. 

12 



134 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 

having (as it would seem) a single misgiving as to the 
weakness of his document. He wished the patriarch 
to convince himself " of the earthly and heavenly 
"imperium, of the royal priesthood of the Roman 
" Chair," and retain no trace of the suspicion that 
this chair "wished to usurp power by the help of 
foolish ^ and old wives' fables." He is, however, the 
only one of all the popes who has brought the 
document expressly before the eyes of the world, and 
formally challenged criticism. In remarkable contrast 
to him, his guide and adviser and successor, Gregory 
Vn., never made use of it, in not one. of his numerous 
letters even mentions it, — a most expressive silence, 
when one considers how strong the temptation must 
have been to him to avail himself of this weapon 
against his numerous and overpowering enemies. 
Not so his friend, cardinal Peter Damiani. He holds 
up the privilege granted by Constantine as an impene- 
trable shield against the Greeks, who supported the 
cause of the imperial anti-pope Caladous, and does 
not forget to add that the emperor had also given 

1 Harduin, Cone, vi., 934. [" Sed ne forte adhuc de terrena ipisus 
« dominatione aliquis vobis dubietatis supersit scrupulus, neve leviter 
« suspicemini ineptis et anilibus fabulis sanctam Romanam sedem 
"velle sibi inconcussmn honorem vindicare et defensare aliqua- 
« tenus," &c., &c.] 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 13S 



over the kingdom of Italy to the rule of the 
popes. 1 

The use and meaning of the forged Donation 
entered, to a certain extent, a new stage when Urban 
II., in the year 1091, used it to support the claim of 
the Roman Church to the possession of Corsica. He 
deduced the right of Constantine to give away islands, 
from the strange principle that all islands were 
legally juris ptcblici, and therefore state domain. It 
cannot but excite surprise that Urban did not prefer 
to appeal to the donation of Charlemagne, or rather 
does not once mention it. For not only is Corsica 
enumerated among the donations which Charlemagne 
is said to have made, but Leo III. says this distinctly 
in a letter to Charlemagne in the year 808. ^ The 
Church at that time, however, having no fleet, was 
not in a position to maintain a possession which was 
perpetually threatened by the Saracens ; and so Leo 
was obliged to beg the emperor to take the island to 
himself, and protect it with his "strong arm;" and 
(as the Corsican historian Limperani ^ remarks) the 

1 Harduin, i. c, 1122. [As "defensor Komanas ecclesia3," he 
argues that Constantine had abdicated, as regards Kome and Italy, 
in favour of the pope. If, then, the emperor had no authority in 
Eome, how could he have a voice in the election of the pope ?J 

2 Cenni, ii., 60. 

3 Istoria delta Corsica^ Roma, 1760, ii., 2. 



136 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



Roman Chair for 189 years abstained from exercising 
any dominion in Corsica. Not until the year 1077 
do we find Gregory VII. ^ saying, that the Corsicans 
are ready to return under the supremacy of the pope ; 
and from the letter of Urban II. to bishop Daibert, of 
Pisa, it appears that this actually took place at that 
time, or not long afterwards. 

On this notion, that it was the Islands especially 
that Constantine had given to the popes, they pro- 
ceeded to build, although nothing had been said 
about them in the original document ; and with a 
bold leap the Donation of Constantine was transferred 
irom Corsica to the farthest West, viz., to Ireland; and 
the Papal Chair claimed possession of an island, 
which the Romans themselves had never possessed, 
and had scarcely known. This was done by Hadrian 
IV. (i 154-1 159),2 an Englishman by birth; "Anglicana 

1 Lib. 6, epist. 12. 

2 [Kicolas Breakspeare, the poor English scholar, yielded to 
none of his predecessors, Hildebrand not excepted, in the assertion 
of the papal authority. " He was surpassed by few in the boldness 

and courage with which he maintained it. English pride might 
« mingle with sacerdotal ambition in his boon of a new kingdom to 
" his native sovereign. The language of the grant developed 
"principles as yet unheard of in Christendom. The popes had 
" assumed the feudal sovereignity of Naples and Sicily, as in some 
" vague way the successors to the power of Imperial Rome. But 
" Hadrian declared that Ireland, and all islands converted to Chris- 
" tianity^belonged to the sjpecial jmisdiction of St. Peter* The pro- 



137 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



affectione," as the Irish chieftams declared somewhat 
later (1316) in a letter to John XXII. 1 At the desire 
of the English king, Henry II., the pope conferred on 
him the dominion over the island of Ireland (1155), 
which, " like all Christian islands, undoubtedly 
*' belonged of right to St Peter and the Roman 
** Church." The king thus received a dominion 
which, it must be owned, he had first to win with the 
sword ; and, indeed, it was not till after a contest of 
five hundred years, and for the most part only by 
colonization from outside, that it was completely won. 
It did not help the English much to say to the Irish, 
"Your island belonged in former times to the pope, 
" and since he has given it to king Henry, it is your 
''duty to submit yourselves to English rule." The 
Irish, who were not altogether ignorant of the history 
of their native land, knew quite well that neither the 
Roman emperors nor the popes had ever possessed a 
foot's breadth of their country, and could not therefore 

« phetic ambition of Hadrian might seem to have anticipated the 
time, when on such principles the popes should assume the power 
" of granting away new worlds." — Milman, Lot. Christ., viii., c. vii.] 
1 In M'Geoghegan's Histoire de PIrlande, ii., 106 sq. They state 
that up to 1170 they had sixty-one kings, "nullum in temporalibus 
" recognoscentes superlorem.^ Hadrian had acted " indebite, ordine 
"juris omisso omnino." [For this famous letter of Hadrian to 
Penry II., see Append^ D.J 



138 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



exactly understand how pope Hadrian had the power 
to make a present of it to England. 

Hadrian does not mention the Donation of Con- 
stantine in his Bull ; but his friend and confidant, 
John of Salisbury, the one who, ^ according to his 
own confession, induced him to take this step so 
pregnant with consequences, quotes the Donation of 
the first believing emperor as the ground of this "right 
of St. Peter" over all islands. ^ 

1 " Ad preces meas illustri regi Anglonim, Henrico II., concessit 
" at dedit Hiberniam jure hffireditario possidendam, sicut literaa 
*'ipsius testantur in hodiernum diem. Nam omnes insulas, de jure 

antique, ex donatione Constantini, qui earn fundavit et dotavit, 
" dicuntur ad Eomanam Ecclesiam pertinere." — Metalog. 4, 42, opp. 
ed. Giles, v., 206. The embarrassment of Irish miters in later times, 
as regards the Bull, was, as one might expect, considerable. Stephen 
White {Apologia pro Hibernia, ed. Kelly, Dublin, 1849, p. 184), and 
Lynch, or Grantianus Lucius (Cambrensis eversus, Dubl., 1856, ii., 434 
sq.), struggle in vain to prove it a bungling forgery. Lanigan, on the 
other hand {Eccles. History of Ireland, iv., 160), admits its genuine- 
ness, and gives vent to some sharp criticisms on the pope and his 
Bull. M'Geoghehan {Bistoire de VIrlande, Paris, 1758, i., 462) 
foregoes the appeal to the Donation of Constantine, and contents 
himself with saying, « Le Pape, qui etait ne son sujet, lui accorda 

sans peine sa demande ; et la liberte d'une nation entiere fut sacrifice 
"■^ I'ambition de Pun par la complaisance de I'autre." 

2 The Abbe G-oss^lin (^Pouvoir du Pape sur les Souverains, ii., 247, 
ed. de Louvain) has attempted to show that pope Hadrian, properly 
speaking, did not in the least intend to dispose of Ireland in his 
Bull ; that he claimed nothing but a purely spiritual jurisdiction in 
Ireland, merely the right to demand the payment of Peter's pence. 
His reasons for this view are very weak, and he omits to notice 
evidence which is quite decisive. He omits to notice that Hadrian, 



[ THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 139 

The Roman clergy with their Donation of Con- 
stantine had, on the whole, obtained their object very 
successfully ; attempts were now made in Naples to 
advance the interests of the clergy there by similar 
means. In a chronicle of the church of St. Maria del 
Principio, it is stated that Constantine gave the whole 
of the kingdom of Sicily on both sides of the straits, 
along with other possessions, to pope Sylvester ; the 
town of Naples was the only thing which he reserved 
as imperial property. Accordingly the two, Con- 
stantine and Sylvester, came to Naples together, and, 
seeing that Constantine very often heard mass here in 
the Episcopal Church, he attached fourteen prebend- 
aries to it, and endowed these with landed and other 
property, and founded the dignity of a cimeliarch.^ 

says, " that the people of Ireland are to accept and honour the king 
" (who up to this time had not had the most remote right to the 
"island) as their lord and master (sicut Dominum veneretur)." He 
omits all notice of the statement of John of Salisbury, who was 
better informed than any other man respecting the whole circum- 
stance, and respecting the meaning of the Bull, which had been in- 
troduced by himself. Lastly, he omits to notice the fact that 
Hadrian formally invested king Henry with the rights of a suzerain 
by means of a ring which he sent him. The words, that all islands 
belong <'ad jus beati Petri et SS. Kom. Ecclesiae," Gosselin persists 
in understanding of the spiritual jurisdiction of the pope, quite in 
defiance of the use of words in the language of that time. 

1 Parascandolo, Memorie stor. crit diplomatiche della chiesa di 
Napoli, 1847, p. 212. The chronicle appears to belong to the end of 
the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century. [Cimeliarch, 
KUfirj/icapxvZf treasurer.] 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 140 

Meanwhile, in Italy at this time the Roman story of 
Constantine's Donation was rejected without scruple, 
so soon as it clashed with maintained rights or with 
political plans. In Rome, in the year 1105, the monks 
of the monastery Farfa, which had been endowed 
with great privileges by the emperors, contended 
with some of the Roman nobility for the possession 
of a certain castle. The latter upheld the title of the 
Roman Church (on which their own title was supposed 
to depend) to the disputed property, and traced back 
this title to the Donation of Constantine. Thereupon 
the monks, without directly denying the genuineness 
of the document, brought forward a detailed historical 
proof that the document could not possibly mean a 
Donation of Italy, for the emperors who had suc- 
ceeded- Constantine had always possessed and ex- 
ercised in full their dominion over Italy. Accordingly, 
Constantine could only have given spiritual rights to 
the popes in Italy.^ In Rome itself at that time 
(under Paschal II, 1099-1118,) the pope was so far 
from being recognised as the temporal sovereign of a 
distinct territory, that the monks with their abbot 
felt able, without contradiction, to state before the 
Roman judges as a recognised fact — that temporal 
power and government did not befit the pope, for it 

\ Misioriss JF'a^enses, in Pgrtz Momm.^ xiii., 571, 



THE DONATION OP CONSTANTINE, 141 



was not the keys of an earthly kingdom, but only the 
keys of the kingdom of Heaven that he had received 
from God. 

About forty years later commenced the great 
political and religious movements in Italy generally, 
and the efforts of the Arnoldists, in Rome in parti- 
cular, which aimed 1 at placing the control of the 
imperial dignity in the hands of a rabble in Rome — 
a town populace constantly augmented by the influx 
of people from the country, but which was supposed 
to represent the true Romans and heirs of the old 
Roman empire. Thence began the first misunder- 
standings between the Hohenstaufen, Frederick I., 
and the Papal Chair. It was inevitable that the 
Donation of Constantine should again play an im- 
portant part. When a Roman faction, stirred up by 
Arnold of Brescia, was purposing to arrogate to itself 
the control of the city, the papal party in Rome had 
appealed to the Donation, according to which it 
appeared that Rome belonged to the pope. In op- 
position to this Wetzel, an Arnoldist, maintained in 
his letter to Frederick, in the year 1 152, that " that He 
" and heretical fable of Constantine's having conceded 

1 [That to Arnold of Brescia himself much higher aims, and a 
much nobler policy, must be attributed than are here allowed to his 
followers, would perhaps scarcely be denied.] 



142 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



" the imperial rights in the city to pope Sylvester, 
" was now so thoroughly exposed, that even day 
" labourers and women were able to confute the most 
" learned on the point, and the pope and his cardinals 
" would not venture to show themselves for shame." ^ 
And in fact, Eugenius III. had been obliged to 
leave Rome^ (for the second time) in the beginning 
of the year 1 150, and remained until December of 
1 1 52 in Segni and Ferentino. It is, however, re- 
markable that the arguments with which the Arnoldist 
and his Roman day labourers and housewives knew 
so well how to demolish the lie about the Donation of 
Constantine, themselves in their turn rested upon 
errors and fictions. Constantine, says Wetzel, was a 
Christian already, and therefore had been baptized 
before the time of Sylvester, consequently the whole 
story of the Donation to Sylvester is untrue. As 
proof of this a passage is quoted out of an apo- 
cryphal ^ letter of pope Melchiades, which is found in 

1 Ap. Martene, am'pl. coll., ii., 556. 

2 [On the first occasion (March, 1146) Eugenius retired first to 
Viterbo, and thence to Sienna ; then, after a year's delay, to France, 
where he became little more than the mouthpiece of St. Bernard. 
He returned to Italy towards the end of 1148, but to Yiterbo and 
Tusculum, not to Kome. It was not till the end of 1149 that he once 
more entered the capital, and then only as its bishop, not as its 
sovereign.] 

3 A document much used, sometimes under the title Libellus de 
Munificentia Constantini. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 143 



the pseudo-Isidorian collection, and is also made use 
of by Gratian ; and it is proved from the Historia 
tripartita (of Cassiodore) that Constantino was a 
Christian before his entry into Rome. ^ 

In spite of this contradiction in Rome itself, the 
Donation was made the basis of higher and constantly 
increasing claims at this time, and, indeed, as early 
as the close of the eleventh century. Already in the 
time of Gregory VII., or immediately after him under 
Urban II., the inclusion of the Donation in the new 
collection of rights and title-deeds showed clearly an 
intention of making an extensive use of it. This was 
now done by Anselm of Lucca, cardinal Deusdedit, 
and the compilator of the collection which is known 
under the name of Ivo of Chartres.^ On the other 
hand, Burchard of Worms, in his collection, which 
was made between 1012 and 1023, has not yet in- 
cluded it. Specially surprising is the change which 
is made in Anselm's work of the " or " into a most 
significant and comprehensive " and^ He has, " quod 

3 Wetzel does not appeal, as one -would have expected him to 
have done, to the baptism in Nicomedia at the end of the emperor's 
life, as related in the Tripertita from Eusebius. No doubt the idea 
of the baptism in Eome was too deeply rooted in the minds of the 
Eomans to allow him to make such an appeal. 

1 More exact references in Antonius Augustinus, De Emend. Grai, 
Ojpp., ed. Lucens, iii., 41, in the notes. 



144 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



" Const. Imp. Papae concessit coronam et omnem 
** regiam dignitatem in urbe Romana, et Italia, et m 

partibus occide7ttalibus" What practical meaning 
Roman ecclesiastics intended to give to these last 
words, appears from a statement made by Otto of 
Freisingen. In his chronicle, which was composed 
between 1 143 and 1 146, he asserts the authenticity ^ 
of the Donation, and relates how Constantine, after 
conferring the imperial insignia on the pope, went 
to Byzantium, adding that " for this reason the 

Roman Church maintains that the western king- 
" doms have been given over to her possession by 

Constantine, and demands tribute from them to 
" this day, with the exception of the two kingdoms of 

the Franks " (that is, the French and the German 
one). The defenders of the empire, however, objected 
" that in each transaction Constantine had not con- 
" ferred the empire on the popes, but had merely 
" chosen them as spiritual fathers." 

To the best of my knowledge there are no papal 
documents extant, with the exception of the one 
about Ireland, in which the payment of tribute is 
demanded of the whole realm on the strength of the 
Donation of Constantine. Just the very pope who 
went the greatest lengths in such demands, Gregory 

1 Chi-on. 3, 3 ap., Urstis. i., 80. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 145 



VII., never appealed to the Donation in making tliem, 
but to feudal rights of the Roman See dating from an 
earlier period ; and he attempted ^ (without result, 
however), to exact tribute from France. And yet, 
as appears from his letters,^ Gregory had had the 
archives thoroughly searched, in order to discover 
documents, from which a feudal dependence of the 
several kingdoms and countries upon the Roman 
Chair might be claimed. 

However, the ninth canon in the Dictafus, which, 
though not proceeding from Hildebrand himself, are, 
nevertheless, the work of his time, is unmistakeably 
borrowed from the Donation ; the pope alone may 
make use of the imperial insignia." Serious stress 
was never laid on this point. The popes did not 
assume the sceptre, sword, and ball. Boniface VIII. 
is the only pope who, according to one account, is 
said to have done so at once at the celebration of the 
Jubilee in the year 1300. But if Constantine had 
really ceded Italy and the West to the pope, it 
appeared to follow naturally and fairly that the empire 
in its whole extent of territory was a present, a free 
gift of the popes, and therefore (according to the then 
prevalent ideas and poHcy) a fief of the Roman Chair, 

1 Cf. Muratori, Antichitd Ital., Firenze, 1833, x. 126 sq. 

2 UjHst 23. lib. 8. 

13 



146 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, ' 

the emperor being vassal and the pope suzerain. And 
then, if not the kingdom of Germany, at any rate that 
of Italy with the Lombard crown would be reckoned 
as a papal fief. Certainly, since A.D. 800, since the 
first founding of the Western empire, a broad way 
had been made towards this end. At that time the 
pope prostrated himself to the ground before the 
newly-crowned emperor, and did obeisance to him in 
the form of homage paid to the old emperors. 1 
Now, however, a picture was placed in the Lateran 
palace which represented the emperor Lothair doing 
homage to the pope,^ with verses, in which it was 
stated in so many words that the king had first 
confirmed the rights of the city before the gates of 
Rome, and had then become the vassal (homo) of the 
pope, whereupon he received the crown as a gift^ 
from the latter. At the same time many Romans 
declared that the German kings had possessed the 
Roman empire,^ no less than the Italian kingdom, 

1 Annales Laurissenses in Pertz, I, 138; "Et post laudes ab 
"Apostolico more antiquorum principum adoratus est." 

2 [Compare the gross misrepresentations of the circumstances of 
the council of Florence in the bassi relievi on the gates of St Peter's 
at Home. — Marriott's Testimony/ of the Catacoy/ibs, London, 1870, p. 
104, etc.] 

4 K'adevic, i,, 10; Murat., vi., 748. 

2 Imperium Urhis. The imperial dignity itself the pope could 
not confer on the strength of the Donation of Constantine, which 
Contained nothing about it. but only (as the Komans said) as the 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 1^7 



merely as a present from the popes. From this arose 
that storm of dissatisfaction which broke out in 
Germany in the year 1 157, when a letter from Fladrian 
to Frederick Barbarossa spoke of " beneficia " which 
he had granted to the emperor, or could still grant, 
and expressly called the imperial crown itself such a 
beneficium, i. e., a feod, as it was understood at the 
imperial court. Hadrian could easily justify himself, 
by saying that he had used the word in its ordinary, 
not in its technical and political sense ; that he had 
intended to say nothing more than that it was he who 
had placed the crown on the emperor's head.^ But, 
in Germany, men mistrusted the Roman clergy, and 
the bitter feeling remained, as we find provost Gerhoh 
of Reigersburg expressing it at the time in sharp 
words, a man otherwise thoroughly devoted to the 

organ of the Eoman repnl)lic and in their name, for they considered 
themselves as the heirs of the old populus Eomamis ; or else, as the 
defenders of the Donation supposed, as the supreme Head of the 
city of Eome, to which the right of electing the emperor, originally 
inherent in the Roman repuhlic, came as a matter of course. Hence, 
although the empire itself was no fief of the Eoman Chair (for which 
reason it was never actually given away), nevertheless it was possible 
to maintain in Rome, that the iniperium urhis and the kingdom of 
Italy belouged to the pope alone to confer, seeing that he had 
received both from Constantine, and that he would confer them 
only as fiefs, reserving his own supremacy; but that without these 
two things there was no empire. 

1 " Per hoc vocabulum 'couLulimus ' nil aliud intelleximus quam 
»im|)oisuimus*' " 



14.8 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 

Papal See. He says that the custom (which of course 
rested for support on the Donation of Constantine) of 
the emperor holding the pope's stirrup had prompted 
the Romans to paint these offensive pictures, in which 
kings or emperors were represented as vassals of the 
popes ; from which they gained nothing, excepting 
the embittered feelings and hard words of temporal 
princes. ^ If the popes, by allowing such pictures, 
claimed to be emperors and lords of emperors, making 
the emperors their vassals, this was nothing else than 
to destroy the power ordained of God and to go 
as^ainst the divine order. 

However, whatever meaning and extent of applica- 
tion the Roman clergy might give to the supposed 
Donation ; whatever new collections of laws might 
contain on the subject, the historiai-S of this and the 
following period are wont, when they mention the 
Donation at all, cautiously to confine it within tolerably 
narrow limits. Sicard of Cremona gives a very 
detailed account of the fabulous baptism of Constan- 
tine,2 but quotes nothing more than this from the 
Donation, that the emperor gave Sylvester regal 
privileges, and ordained that all bishops should be 

2 Treatise of the provost Gerhoh of Reigersburg, Be Investiga- 
tione AnLichrisLi, edited by Sliilz, Vienna, 1858, pp. 54, 56. 

3 In Muratori, vii., 554. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. lAg 

subject to the pope; but he does not go on to explain 
the nature of these regal privileges. Romuald of 
Salerno knows and mentions merely this ecclesiastical 
supremacy.^ Robert Abolant confines himself to 
mentioning a privilege bequeathed by Constantine 
to the popes, without any farther statement.^ A 
hundred years later, an historian so entirely devoted 
to papal interests as Tolomeo of Lucca quotes nothing 
beyond this from the Donation, that the emperor nad 
conferred on certain Rom^an ecclesiastics (the cardinals 
of a later age) the rights and prerogatives of the 
Roman senate.^ And Vv^hile of the papal biographers 
Bernard Guidonis is entirely silent about the Dona- 
tion, the dominion over the city of Rome, and the 
conferring of the imperial insignia, is all that Amalrich 
Augerii quotes from it. ^ On the other hand the 
Spaniard, Lucas B. of Tuy (about A.D. 1236), repre- 
sents the dominion over Italy (regnum Italise) as 
having been conierred on the pope.^ ?Iis contempo- 
rary, the Belgian Balduin, monk in the Monastery 
Ninnove, restricts Constantine's gift once more to the 
dominion over Rome. ^ 

1 Muvatori, vii., 79. 

2 Chroholoffia, Trecip, 1609, p. 49. 

3 IJist. EccL., 5, 4, in Muratori, xi., 825. 

4 Ap. Eccard , ii., 1665. 

5 Corpus Chronicnrum Flandrise^ ed. de Smet, ii , 613. 

6 Chi onicon Mundi, ap. Schotti llisp. Illustr.f iv., 36. 



ISO THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 

All the more remarkable on this account is the dis- 
cussion in which, at the close of the twelfth century, a 
man who, in a certain sense, belonged to both nations, 
engaged. Gottfried, a German, educated in Bamberg, 
chaplain and secretary to the three Hohenstaufen 
sovereigns — Conrad, Frederick, and Henry VL, — who 
ended his days as a canon at Viterbo, states in his 
Pantheon, ^ which he dedicated to pope Urban III., 
A.D. 1 1 86, that, in order to secure greater peace to 
the Church, Constantine had withdrawn with all his 
pomp to the Greeks, to Byzantium, and had given the 
pope regal privileges, and, on the strength of them, as 
it would appear, Rome, Italy, and Gaul. (This is the 
first time that Gaul is expressly mentioned as in- 
cluded in the Donation.) Thereupon he makes the 
" supporters of the empire," and the " defenders of 
the Church," state their pros and cons. The former 
point to the historical fact, that Constantine divided 
his kingdom between his sons, and to the well-known 
texts in the Bible. The latter, however, answer, that 
the will of God is declared in the very fact of the 
Donation ; that God would allow His Church to have 
fallen into the error of a possession to which it had no 
right, was not to be supposed. Gottfried himself, 
however, does not venture to decide ; he leaves the 
solution of this question to the powers that be. 

1. Ap. Pistori, ii., 268. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 151 

In the Otia Impcriala (leisure hours), which 
Gervasius of Tilbury wrote for the emperor Otho IV. 
about the year 121 1, it is stated that Constantine 
had conferred royal power over the countries of the 
West on Sylvester, without intending to transfer to 
him along with it either the kingdom itself or the 
empire, which he reserved for himself. But the giver 
is superior to the receiver, and the royal and imperial 
power is derived immediately from God. God, he 
says, is the creator of the empire, but the emperor is 
the creator of the papal supremacy. ^ 

On the whole, however, the authority of the 
Donation from the close of the twelfth century 
onwards was in the ascendant; and belief in it, and in 
the wide extent of territory which Constantine in- 
cluded in it, grew stronger. Gratian himself did not 
include it, but it was soon inserted as "palea,"^ and 
thus found an entry into all schools of canonical 
jurisprudence, so that from this time forth the lawyers 
were the most influential publishers and defenders of 
the fiction. The language of the popes also was 
henceforward more confident. " Omne regnum Oc- 
cidentis ei (Silvestro) tradidit et dimisit," ^ says 

1 Ap. Leibnit, SS. Brunsvic, i., 882. 

2 But with the more moderate expression, " Italiam seu occi- 
" dentales regiones," not with the unlimited " et " of Anselm. 

3 Sermo de S. Silvestro, Opera, Venetiis, 1578, i., 9T. 



152 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 

Innocent III. (1198-1216). Gregory IX. (1214-1227) 
followed this out to its consequences in a way surpas- 
sing anything that had been done before, when he 
represented to the emperor Frederick II., the ablest 
and most formidable opponent who had yet sustained 
the lists against the Roman See, that Constantino 
had, along with the imperial insignia, given over 
Rome with the duchy ajid the imperimn to the care of 
the popes for ever. Whereupon the popes, without 
diminishing in any degree whatever the substance of 
their jurisdiction, established the tribunal of the 
empire, transferred it to the Germans, and are wont 
to concede the power of the sword to the emperors at 
their coronation. ^ 

This was as much as to say that the imperial 
authority had its sole origin in the popes, could be 
enlarged or narrowed at their good pleasure, and that 
the pope could call each emperor to account for the 
use of the power entrusted to him. But the highest 
rung of the ladder was as yet not reached. This was 
first achieved by Gregory's successor. Innocent IV,, 
when the synod of Lyons resulted in the deposition of 
Frederick ; in which act this pope went- beyond all his 
predecessors in the increase of his claim, and the 
extension of the authority of Rome. It is an error, 

1 Ap. Raynald., adanmim 1236, 24, p. 481, ed. Eom. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 153 

Innocent declares, in the year 1245, to suppose that 
Constantine was the first to confer temporal power 
on the Roman See ; rather Christ Himself entrusted 
to Peter and his successors both powers, the sacerdotal 
and the royal, and the reign of both kingdoms, the 
earthly and the heavenly. Constantine, therefore, 
had merely resigned an unlawfully possessed power 
into the hands of its legitimate possessor, the Church, 
and had received it back again from the Church. ^ 

Another half century, however, elapsed before 
theolo2fians were found to reduce this new doctrine 
to a formal shape, and to furnish it with the usual 
scholastic, and in such cases very elastic apparatus. 
Under the influence of circumstances which took 
place towards the end of the thirteenth century, and 
of the spirit in which a Martin IV. and a Boniface 
VI I L ruled, the use which had been made of the 
Donation of Constantine assumed a different form. 
The Dominican, Tolomeo of Lucca, author of the 

1 Cod Epist. Vatican., 4957, 49 ; Codex Vindohon Philol, 61, f. 10 — 
305, f. 83. In Eaiimer, Geschichte der Ilohenstaufen, iv , 178 (first 
edition), who quotes the Latin text. The document was not i^nown 
in the centuries immediately following, though the fact of Innocent 
IV. having taken up such a position was well known, for Alvaro 
Pelayo says (De Planctu Ecclesise, i., 43, about the year 1350), 
"Collatio autem Constantini potius fuit cessio quam collatio; sic 
"etiam fertur Innocentius IV. dixisse imperatori Frederico, quern 
" deposuit." 



154 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



two last books of the work De Regimine PrincipiLin, 
the first two books of which are by Thomas Aquinas, 
goes beyond ^ his predecessors, and explains the 
Donation as a formal abdication of Constantine m 
favour of Sylvester ; ^ and connecting' with this other 
historical circumstances which are either inventions 
or misconceptions, he thence draws the conclusion 
that the power of all temporal princes derives its 
strength and efficacy solely from the spiritual power 
of the popes. There was no halting half way ; and 
immediately afterwards, in the contest of Boniface 
VIII. with Philip of France, the Augustinian monk, ^ 

1 These last two books were written subsequent to 1298 ; for the 
putting to death of Aldolf of Nassau, by Albert, is mentioned as an 
event which had already taken place. 

2 " Primo quidem de Constantino apparet, qui Silvestro in imperio 
"cessit." — Be Regimine rrinciiiuniy 3, 10. O^uscula Th mx Aquin., 
Lugd , 1562, p. 232. 

3 If the treatise De JJtraque- Potestate (which is found in Goldast, 
Jilonarchia, ii.) were from the pen of ^Egidius, he must have pro- 
fessed the very opposite principles in the interest of king Philip. 
But, seeing that aEgidius, as archbishop of Bourges, is found 
among those prelates who went to Rome against Philip's will to the 
council summoned by Boniface, and thereupon was punished with 
confiscation, one may be quite certain that the writing in question 
was not composed by him. In his genuine and still unprinted 
worli, the substance of which is given by Charles Jourdain, Un 
Ouvrage Inedit de Gilles de Home, Paris, 1858, ^gidius says bluntly 
enough, " Patet quod omnia temporaiia sunt sub domino Ecclcvsias 
" collocata, et si non de facto, quoniam multi forte huic juri 

rebeliantui', dejure tamen et exdebito temporaiia summo pontifici 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 155 

Aegidius Colonna of Rome, whom the pope had 
nominated to the archbishopric of Bourges, drew the 
natural conclusions without the slightest disguise in a 
work which he dedicated to his patron. Towards the 
middle of the century two theologians of the papal 
court, Agostino Trionfo and Alvaro Pelayo, the one 
an Italian, the other a Spanish minorite, took the 
same line of argument. This theory, reduced to its 
simplest terms, runs thus : Christ is Lord of the whole 
world ; at His departure He left this dominion to 
His representatives, Peter and his successors; there- 
fore the fullness of all spiritual and temporal power 
and dominion, the union of all rights and privileges, 
lies in the hands of the pope. Every , monarch, even 
the most powerful, possesses only so much power and 
territory as the pope has transferred to him, or finds 
good to allow him. Trionfo says without reservation, 
that if an emperor, like Constantine, has given 
temporal possessions to Sylvester, this is merely a 
restitution of what had been stolen in an unjust and 
tyrannical way. ^ 

This theory, utterly unknown to the earlier popes 
and to the whole of Christendom, was invented in the 

"sunt subjecta, a quo jure et a quo debito nuUatenus possunt 
" absolvi," p. 13. - 
1 Summa de Ecclesia^ 94, 1. 



156 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



first instance in order to meet the objections to the 
Donation of Constantine. For there were not wanting 
persons who declared that Constantine had no power 
to make such a suicidal Donation, so ruinous to the 
empire. An emperor could not tear in pieces the 
empire, for this was in direct contradiction to his 
office. 1 

The French advocate, Peter Dubois, at Coutances 
declared, in his opinion about the Bull of Boniface 
VIII. to Philip, that the Donation was from the first 
legally null and void ; all lawyers were unanimous in 
maintaining this, only the very long prescription 
conferred on it at the present time a legal validity. ^ 

Contemporaneously with him the Dominican, John 
Quidort of Paris, magister of the theological faculty 
there (died A.D. 1306), in his book On the Regal and 
Papal Power y contended against the Donation of Con- 
stantine, for, as all lawyers maintained, the emperor, 

1 Brought out more in detail by Dante, for example, in the De 
Monarchia^ 3, 10; Opere llinori, ed. di Fraticelli, Firenze, 1857, ii.) 
460. ["Ergo scindere Imperium, Imperatori non licet. Si ergo 

aliquee dignitates per Constantinum essent alienat^e (ut dicuut) 
« ab Imperio," &c. Here the sceptical "ut dicunt" shows that 
Dante doubted the fact as well as the rightfulness of the Donation. 
So also Dicunt quidam adhuc, quod Constantinus Imperator, 
" mundatus a lepra intercessione Sylvestri, tunc summi pontificis, 

imperii sedem, scilicet Eomam, donavit ecclesice, cum multis aliis 

imperii dignitatibus."] 

2 In Dupuy, Eistoire des Differentes Freuves, p. 46. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 157 

as semper Augustus, could only enlarge, not diminish 
the empire ; on the contrary, such a mutilation of the 
empire, of which he was only the administrator, 
might be set aside by each of his successors as null 
and void. ^ 

From the time that the harmonious relations 
between the empire and the papacy were destroyed, 
and one conflict after another between the two 
powers arose with a sort of inherent necessity, and 
the transfer of the papacy into French hands made 
the restoration of due relations impossible (that is to 
say, from the death of Frederick II. to the death of 
Lewis the Bavarian, 1 250-1 346), the Donation of 
Constantine was perpetually mentioned in the various 
memorials, opinions, and apologies, which had 
reference to the contest. The defenders of the 
imperial cause, appealing to the prevailing view of 
the civil jurists, usually without circumlocution pro- 
nounced the Donation null and void or obsolete. ^ 
One of the ablest and acutest contenders for the 
imperial power, the Minorite Marsiglio of Padua, 
does not quite know how he stands towards it. 

2 Fratris Johannis de Parisiis Tract, de Potestate Reg. et Pap., in 
Schardii Coll. de Jurisdictione Imp.., p. 208 sq. 

1 So the author of the inquiry, Whether the pope had power to enforce 
an armistice on the Emperor, Henry VII., iu Doenniges, Ada Ilenrici 
Vu., ii., 158. 

14 



158 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 

" Some say that Constantine conferred the privilege 
on the pope," is the expression he uses ; but he then 
goes on to say that those in the papal interest, either 
because the document was not clear and com- 
prehensive enough, or had become obsolete, or had 
never been legally valid, had invented this entirely 
new theory of a universal, spiritual, and temporal 
power derived immediately from Christ the God- 
man. ^ But even this Marsiglio found the Donation 
of Constantine a welcome weapon against the 
primacy of the Roman See in general, for from it 
it was very easy to draw the conclusion that even the 
ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope over all other 
churches and bishops rested merely on the grant of 
the emperor, and therefore on a purely human, 
perishable, and in such things properly invalid 
right. 2 Marsigho knew well how to turn this weak 
spot to good account. 

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the same 
amount of uncertainty and arbitrariness as before 
continued to prevail in the definitions respecting the 
real extent of the Donation. In the decretal of pope 
Nicholas III. merely the cession of Rome to the popes 
by Constantine is mentioned, in accordance with the 

1 Defensor. PaciSj Heidelberg, 1599, p. 101. 

2 I. c, p. 203. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 159 



special object of this document. ^ In the form of 
oath which the emperor, Henry VI L, had to take 
before his coronation, Clement V. made this monarch 
swear that he would protect and uphold all the rights 
which the emperors, and Constantine of course first of 
all, had granted to the Roman Church, without 
however going on to state in what these rights 
consisted.2 John XXII., in his refutation of Mar- 
siglio of Padua, in the year 1327, merely mentions in 
passing the fact that Constantine had given up the 
imperial city to Sylvester, quoting the words of the 
Donation.^ The oldest, or second oldest commentator 
on Dante, the compiler of the Ottimo CommentOy who 
wrote in the year 1333, contents himself with the 
indefinite statement that Constantine had given 
Sylvester " all the dignity of the empire."^ 

The author of the commentary on Dante, which 
was written in the year 1375, states quite simply that 
Constantine gave to the pope and the Church exactly 
what the pope possesses to this day ; ^ in opposition 

1 In 6 to, 1, 6, 17. 

2 Clementin, 9 de jur. ej. 

3 In Raynald, a. 1327, 31. 

4 LOltimo Commento della divina Commedia, Pisa, 1827, 1355, 
Peter Aureoli says very much the same (about the year 1316) : 
** Honor imperii translatus est in personam Silvestri et in Kom. 
*' ecclesiam." — Aurea Scripturoe. Elucidatio, Venetiis, s., a. f. 89. 

6 Chiose sopra Danie^ iesio inedito^ Firenze, 1846, p. 161. 



i6o THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



to which a later commentator, Guhiiforto delli Bargigi, 
is convinced that only ** the patrimony in Tuscany, in 
•'the neighbourhood of Rome," is included in the 
Donation. ^ 

Rudolf or Pandulf Colonna,^ canon of Sienna, and 
probably a Roman by birth (fourteenth century), 
gives the Donation once more the widest extent of 
meaning, including " Rome, Italy, and all western 
kingdoms. " ^ Nicolas of Clamenge himself says 
without any hesitation, that Constantine conferred 
the western empire on the Roman Church, and 
intended the cardinals to be senators of it. ^ 

In France efforts were made to secure the country 

1 Lo InfernOj col comenio di G. d. B., pubbl. da Gr. Zacherori}, 
Firenze, 1838, p. 45G. 

2 Not Raoul de ColoTiTnene, canon of Chartre?, as the ITis'oire 
lUleraire de la France, xxi , 151, represents him. The Ilis oire itself 
notices that the author in two manuscripts of his snial] work is 
called " Canonicus Scnensis, ' and only in one " Canonicus Caruo- 
" tensis." A Frenchman would have expressed himself differently 
respecting the " translatio imperii a Francis ad Gei-manos," and 
would not have contented himself with saying merely, "Regnum 

mundi translatum est ad Germanos vel Teutonicos," p, 2^*1. The 
whole historical view is taken froin the standpoint of a Roman 
ecclesiastic ; and the author gives one pretty clearly to understand 
that he is a Roman ecclesiastic by noticing that pope Hadrian was 
by birth de regione Vise lata?," p. 292. Moreover, Radulf has 
copied Marsilius of Padua, or the latter has copied him, as one can 
gee by comparing them in Schardius, p. 287 and p. 226. 

3 De Translatione Imperii, in Schardius, p. 287. 

4 De AnnatiS non Solvendis^ Ojjsra, ed. Lyndias, p. 92. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. i6i 



against the consequences which were drawn, or might 
be drawn, from the extent of a Donation which 
embraced the whole of the West. The Parisian 
theologian, Jacob Almain, contends therefore that 
Constantine had no power whatever to transfer the 
empire to the pope without the consent of the people; ^ 
and in the second place, that the kingdom of Gaul at 
any rate could not have been included, for the Romans 
had never been masters of Gaul, and the people of 
Gaul had never of their own accord voted for sub- 
mittinp; to Roman rule. He seems to have had no 
misgivings as to the extent to which the Celtic 
population of Gaul had allowed themselves to become 
Romanized. Almain maintains moreover that it is 
the common opinion of doctors generally, that as a 
matter of fact Constantine did not resign the empire, 2 
Lupoid of BabenbergJn the fourteenth century, in 
his treatise On the Roman Empire^ dedicated to 
Baldwin, archbishop of Treves (1307-1354), discusses 

1 *' Contradicente popiilo occidentali." In Gerson 0pp. ii., 971, 
cf p. 1063. 

2 Quod resignaverit imperinm occidentale, niinquara legitnr." 
It is remarkable how nncertain people were even at this late date 
(Almain wrote about the year 1510) respecting a fact so unmistake- 
ahle. If one considers to what a high degree of historical discern- 
ment soma writers attained even as early as the twelfth century, one 
might almost say, that in this direction, and in all that relates to a 
rational understanding of history, the movement for three whole 
centuries was a retrogression rather than an advance. 



i62 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



the Donation very thoroughly while investigating the 
question whether the king of Rome had to take the 
oath of a vassal to the Roman See. ^ The discussion 
with him means nothing less than the decision of the 
still wider question, w^hether the pope is really the 
suzerain of the German empire and possessor of the 
dominium directum, so that in all countries of the 
empire all that accrues to the emperor is the dominium 
utile. Hence we once more meet with the most 
different opinions as to the validity or nullity of the 
Donation ; whereupon Lupoid remarks that all canon- 
ists are wont to maintain that the Donation is legally 
valid and irrevocable. But then the other kingdoms 
of the West must have stood in the same relation of 
vassaldom to the pope. Lupoid, however, is keen- 
sighted enough to see through the unhistorical 
character of the whole fiction. He knows that the 
emperors ruled over the West just as much after 
Constantine's time as before it ; and he himself had 
found passages in the ecclesiastical law-books which 
speak merely of giving up the city of Rome to the 
pope. In the end, however (beHef in the Donation 
was at that time still so powerful), he does not venture 
to come to a decision, but prefers to leave the settle- 
ment of the matter to higher powers. 

1 la Schard, p. 391. ^ 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 163 

From a legal point of view the matter remained 
just as debatable as ever. It was not, however, easy 
to explain how Constantine, as elective emperor (and 
the old Roman emperors were supposed to have been 
elective like the German ones), could have given away- 
half the empire. In a treatise which, so far as I am 
aware, has never been printed, and which seems to 
have been written in the time of Lewis of Bavaria in 
reference to his contests, ^ the question is discussed, 
whether in virtue of his election the emperor can 
forthwith and immediately exercise control over the 
w^hole realm, or whether he needs to be empowered 
by the pope to do so. In consequence of the 
Donation of Constantine, says the author, the whole 
jurisdiction of the emperor became dependent on 
confirmation by the pope; but, on the other hand, it 
must be admitted that the rights and constituent 
parts of the realm could not be alienated so 
arbitrarily, without the consent of the princes, barons, 
and high officials. 2 

1 Brevis Traetatus de Jurisdictione Imperii et Auctoritate Summi 
Pont ficis circa Impeitum. Cod. Lat. 5832 in the National Library 
at Munich, f 121, £f. 

2 " Scd contra hoc est, quod jura imperii alienari non possnnt 
" quum sint bona republicse, qnaj sine publicis officialibus 
"dispensari non possunt, ut sunt principes et barones et quorum 
"interest assistere ministerio imperiaii aulas diversorum apicmn." 
f. 123. 



i64 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



On the other hand the Donation is defended 
towards the end of the fifteenth century by the 
Strasburg parish priest, John Hug of Schlettstadt, 
in his Wagenfithr der h. KircJie tind des Romischeit 
Reichs, which he dedicated to cardinal Raymond 
of Gurk (1493-1505). Accursius, he says, has 
declared the gift to be invalid on account of its 
extravagance, but John Teutonicus, the anno- 
tator of the Decrctitm (of Gratian), has proved its 
immutable validity from the Clementines, ^ which 
inserted the Donation into the imperial oath. 

The German law-books gave the Donation of Con- 
stantine a remarkable extension, inasmuch as they 
maintained that Constantine gave to Sylvester the 
civil or king's bann to the amount of sixty schillings, 
" in order to compel all those who will not reform 
themselves by corporal punishment, to be compelled 
"to do so by means of fines." ^ This is a specific 
German invention, utterly unknown to the Latin 
nations. The sense is as follows: in consequence of 
the wide and indefinite sphere of the ecclesiastical ^ 

. 1 [The Consiitutiones ClemmVnse, are that part of the Corpus Juris 
C<monici which contains the decrees of the council of Vienne (a.d. 
1311), together with decrees of Clement V.; published in 1313.] 

2 Sachse7i^piegel, von Homoyer, i., 238 (3, 63). Bas Rechtsbuch 
nach Distinclionen, edited by Ortloff, p. 325 (6, 16). ISchwabens^piegelj 
in iSenckenberg, Corp. Jur. Germ., ii., 10. 

3 [These ecclesiastical courts (Send-gerichte, synodus) were held 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 165 



courts, it became a custom in Germany that the 
ecclesiastical judges should impose fines, levying 
them themselves, for various crimes, some of which 
belonged entirely to the municipal jurisdiction ; an 
abuse which Alexander III. forbade as early as the 
year 11 80, but to no purpose. As an authority for this 
abnormal custom was wanted, and none could be 
found, the Donation of Constantine — that large and 
inexhaustible treasury from which political and 
municipal privileges could be drawn just as they 
were wanted— must here also be brought into use. ^ 

In the ideas of the people and laity generally, the 
Donation of Constantine had meanwhile acquired 
another and more comprehensive significance. In 
the whole of the later Middle Ages we see two 
diametrically opposite currents prevailing. On the 
one side was the effort to furnish the Church with 

by the bishop, or archdeacon, or their substitute (Sendrichter) to try 
ecclesiastical offences, especially profanation of the Lord's day, and 
other violations of the decalogue.] 

1 The cardinals D'Ailly and Zaberella, on behalf of the bishops 
and their officials, lodged complaints respecting these fiscal gains of 
the ecclesiastical courts before the council of Constance, and re- 
quested that provision might be made against thorn i See Von Der 
Hardt, Concil. Const., i, p 8, p. 421, and p 9, p. 524). But the 
mischief continued in Germany, and contributed not a little to the 
general bitterness against the hierarchy and the clergy, as one sees 
from the Gravamina Nationis Germanicse, c. 64, of the year 15112, not 
to mention other indications of the same fact. 



1 66 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



considerable donations, to create for her a broad 
foundation of extensive landed property, and to raise 
the number and condition of clergy living on 
ecclesiastical endowments ; but side by side with this 
was the view which had been making way ever since 
the twelfth century, that the great possessions and 
large revenues of the Church were a grievous evil, the 
sources of nearly all existing abuses, and the causes 
of a moral deterioration of the clergy. ^ This view 

1 [We find this expressed in very strong language in some of the 
politica] and satirical songs of the thirteenth and following centuries. 
Such songs took a new tone in England just about that age. The 
civil commotions of the reign of John, and the weak government of 
Henry III., afforded every party abundance of material for satire, 
and plenty of opportunity for giving it free utterance. The clerk 
with bis Latin, the courtier with his Anglo-Norman, and the people 
with their vigorous old English, all had their word to say. It may 
be worth while to give a few examples from Mr. Wright's coUectiou 
of The Political Songs of England. 

" Eoma mundi caput est, sed nil capit mundum ; 
Quod pendeta capite totum est immundumj 
Transit enim vitium primum in secundum, 
Et de fundo redolet quod est juxta fundum. 
" Eoma capit singulos et res singulorum ; 

Komanorum curia non est nisi forum. 

Ibi sunt venalia jura senatorum, 

Et solvit contraria copia nummorxim." 
" Solam avaritiam Eoma novit parca, 

Parcit danti munera, parco non est parca : 

Nummus est pro numine, et pro Marco marca, 

Et est minus Celebris ara quam sit area," &c., «&c. 

From the Invectio contra avaritiam about the time of the interdict. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 167 



gradually assumed a form of serious and threatening 
import to the clerical body, as the notion was 
developed out of it that originally the clergy had 
been poor, had lived solely upon freewill offerings, 
and had remained poor upon principle, until Con- 
stantine by his Donation put an end to the former 

Jacet ordo clericalis 
In respectu laicalis, 
Sponsa Christi fit venalis, 
Geneiosa generalis ; 
Vcniunt altaria, 
Venit eucharistia, 
Cum sit nugatoria 
Gratia venalis," 
From a Song against the Bishops ^ about 1250. 
"Les contre-estanz abatent li fiz de fclonie ; 
' Lors perit seinte eglise, quant orgoil la mestrie. 
Ceo sustenent li prelaz ki s'i ne peinent mie, 
Pur dreiture sustenir nolent perdre vie." 

From a Song of the Times, about 1274. 
See also Piers the Plovghmans Crede (about 1394) passim, and 
the pelican's charges against the clergy in the Complaint of the 
Jr'loughman.'] 

[Walther von der Vogelweide sings thus on the subject : — 
" Solt ich den pfaffen raten an den trinwen min ; 
BO spreeche ir haut den armen zuo ' se daz ist din/ 
ir zunge sunge unde lieze manegem man daz sin ; 
Gedsehten ouch daz si durch Got e wuren almnosnajre : 
do gap in erste geltes teil der kiinec Constantin. 
Het er gewest daz da von iibel kiinftec wasre, 
so het er wol underkomen des riches swsere j 
wan daz si do waren kische und iibermiiete lasre." 

No. Ill, p. 113, Simrock's edition, Bonn, 1870. 
His poems abound in anti-papal sentiments.] 



i68 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



state of poverty, especially in Rome, and pope 
Sylvester by his acceptance of it gave an example 
eagerly followed by the clerical body generally, and 
ineradicably implanted in them the passion for 
acquiring wealth. The view that the wealth of the 
Church was the great obstacle in the way of all 
clerical reform gained ground more and more. 
Sectarianism, which from the middle of the twelfth 
century onwards assumed numerous and various 
shapes in Italy, France, and Germany, made common 
cause with this view, or fostered it and spread it 
assiduously. It ended in becoming part and parcel 
of public opinion. 

It was precisely this which won for the fabulous 
Donation of Constantine such universal acceptance, 
that the fiction so exactly corresponded with the 
feelings and needs of the people at that time. The 
Middle Ages, with their natural propensity to imagine 
definite actors, and an act producing effects once 
for all, in the case of circumstances which really 
had been gradually and slowly developed, could not 
account for the fact that the formerly poor Church 
had gradually become rich, otherwise than by repre- 
senting this change as having been instantaneous. 
The Church, which till yesterday had been utterly 
without property, became suddenly possessed of a 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 169 



superabundance of earthly goods, through the acts of 
the two Heads, the imperial giver, and the accepting 
pope. And therewith, said numberless persons, the 
hitherto closed Pandora-box had been opened for the 
Church ; all the evils from which she was suffering 
were to be attributed to this source of mischief. ^ 
Even men who stood on the heights in their own 
age, saw the matter thus, and their grief at the in- 
firmities of the Church, the degeneracy of the clergy, 
and the ceaseless conflict between the spiritual and 
temporal power, clothed itself in lamentations over 
Constantine's well-meant, but ill-advised munificence. 
Thus two contemporaries, whose sentiments agree in 
many points, Dante 2 and Ottokar of Ilorneck. The 

1 With what naivete even ecclesiastics and historians up to the 
close of the Middle Ages placed themselves quite at the stand-point 
of the popular view, is shown from the following passage of the 
monk Bernhard White (about a.d. 1510) in his Historia Westpkalisej 
Monast,, 1775, p. 61 : "Silvestro pontificante . . . ecclesiarum 
" Prselati, qui hactenus in paupertate vixerunt, imo nihil hahentes et 
" omnia possidentes, possessiones habere inceperunt." 

2 Inf., XIX., 115-17: 

[" Ahi Constantin, di quanto mal fu matre, 

Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote, 

Che da teprese il primo ricco patre !" 

"Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother, 

Not thy conversion, but that marriage dower, 

Which the first wealthy Father took from thee !" 

Longfellow's Translation. 

Dante deplores the supposed Donation no less heartily in the De 
15 



170 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



former especially bewails avarice and simony, as the 
unhallowed fruit of that Donation ; but the latter says 
Constantine added a sword, which they did not know 

MonarcMd : " felicem populum ! Ausoniam te gloriosam I si vel 
" numquam infirmator imperii tui extitisset ; vel numquam sua pia 
"intentio ipsurn fefellisset." Lib. n., sub finem. 

Ariosto places the Donation in the moon, among the things which 
have been lost or abused on earth : 

" Di varj fiori ad un gran monte passa, 
Ch' ebber gih. buono odore, or puzzan forte, 
Questo era il dono (se pero dir lecc) 
Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece." 

Orl. Fur., c. xxxiv., St. 80. 
" Then passed he to a flowery mountain green, 
Which once smelt sweet, now stinks as odiously j 
This was that gift, if you the truth will have, 
That Constantine to good Sylvester gave." 

Milton's Translation. Prose Works, i., p. 11, ed. 1753. 
From Gary's note on Dante, Inf, xix., 118. 

But perhaps the strongest passage in Dante against the Donation 
is Par, XX., 55, where Constantine is found in Paradise, in spile o/the 
Donation. 

" Lo altio, che segue, con le leggi e meco 
Sotto buona intenzion, che fe mal frutto, 
Per cedere al pastor si fece Greco : 
Ora conosce, come il mal dedutto 
Dal suo bene operar non li e nocivo, 
Avvegna che sia il mondo indi distrutto." 
" The next who follows (Constantine), with the laws and me, 
Under the good intent that bore bad fruit 
Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor; 
Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced 
From his good action is not harmful to him, 
Although the world thereby may be destroyed." 

Longfellow's Translation.] 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 171 



how to wield, to the stole of the priests, and thus 
broke the strength of the empire. ^ 

This view, that the Donation had brought ruin 
into the Church, assumed in that legend-producing 
age the form of an actual occurrence. An angel was 
said to have cried from heaven, " Woe ! woe ! This 
" day hath poison been infused into the Church." 
The legend is to be found as early as the commence- 
ment of the thirteenth ^ century, in Walther von der 
Vogelweide. The angel hath told us true," says 
this poet, but he is thinking chiefly of the weakening 
of the empire, which appears to him to be the evil 
fruit of the Donation : 

" alle viirsten lebent nu mit eren, 
wan der hohste ist geswachet, 
daz hat der pfaflen wal gemachet." S 

So, also, the Strasburg chronicler, Konigshofen. 
" Then was a voice heard over all Rome, which said, 
" * This day hath gall and venom flowed into holy 

1 Cap. 448 in Pez., iii., 446. 

2 [.Simrock assigns this poem to a.d. 1198. The one in which the 
poet talks of having sung for forty years, "von minnen und als 
" iem en sol," is assigned to the year 1_28. This would place his 
birth about 1168. He took part in the sixth crusade, and probably 
died soon after his return.] 

3 [That is, " all the princes now live with honours, since the 
highest (the emperor) is weakened. The election of the clergy has 
brought about this." No. 5, p. 36, Simrock's edition.] 



172 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE, 



" * Christendom/ and know ye that this also is 
" source and ground of all war between popes ^ and 
** emperors." 

Contemplation of the mischief which the hatred 
between Lewis the Bavarian and the French popes 
had created, moved the Minorite John of Winterthur 
also to complain, that "at this time one sees plainly 
enough how truly the angel spoke, in saying that 
through that well-meant, but in its consequences 
" most unhappy, rich dotation and fat present, which 
" Constantine conferred, poison had flowed into the 
« Church." 2 

Even theologians were not ashamed to appeal to 
the saying of the angel. John of Paris concludes from 
it that the Donation had displeased^ God. A hun- 
dred years after him Dietrich Vrie, an Augustinian at 
Osnabruck, says that poison certainly at that time 
had been administered to the Church, but yet only 
through the abuse of the Donation ; for wealth in itself 

1 In the Vienna mannscript, Hist. Eccles., 29, fol. 64 ( in 
thirteenth century), the reason given for the voice of the angel is, 
" quia (ecclesia^ major est dignitate, minor religione." The story 
about the angel is found also in the Chron. JUona.t. Jlellicensis, in 
Pez, y'cr. Auslr , i , 182, in the chronicle of Theodore Engeihusen, in 
L'^hnitz, !tcr. Brunsvic, ii., 1034. 

2 In Eccard, i., 1889. 

3 In Schaid, i^ylloge^ p. 210. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 173 

was by no means a calamity for the Church. ^ At 
last this saying of the angel passed into a proverb, 
common even in the mouth of the lower orders. 2 

At first, however, this angel, who proclaimed the 
poisoning of the Church, seems to have been a fallen 
one. For the first who narrates the miracle, Giraldus 
Cambrensis (about the year 11 80), (and, as bishop 
Pecock of Chichester (1450) assures us, the other 
chroniclers merely copy Giraldus,) makes the " old 
enemy " speak the words. ^ At any rate, this " evil 
one " shortly afterwards transformed himself into an 
angel of light. 

The sects of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
especially the Catharists and Waldenses, proceeded 
on the principle, that every possession of the Church 
was in itself objectionable, and that it was damnable 
for the Church to devote anything m^ore than the mere 
freewill oilerin^s of the moment, tov/ards supplying 

1 Hist. Concil. Const., in Yon der Hardt, i., 111. 

4 Ab omnibus recitatur, tempore quo Constantinus M. incoepit 
dotare ecclesiam, audita est vox in acre : " Hodie cffusum renenum 
" in ecclesia." Jo. Major, de Pot. Fapce. In Gerson's Works, ii., 
1159. 

1 "The oold enemy made tliilk voice in the eir." Pecock's 
Eepressor, ed. by Churchill labington, London, 1860, p 351. 
According to Pecock's statement, the passage is to be fonnd in the 
Cosmographia Hibernioe of Giraldus. It is not in the printed Toj^o- 
graphia Hibernioi ; but it is possibly in the still unprinted JJescrijtiio 
Mundi of Giraldus. 



174 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



means of life to the clergy. The ^ endowment, 
therefore, of the Church by Constantine was considered 
by them as a decisive turning-point, involving the ruin 
of the Church, nay, its utter destruction. Until 
Sylvester, they said, the Church existed ; in him it 
fell, and became extinct by receiving from the hand 
of Constantine riches and worldly power, until it was 
once more revived by the " Poor men of Lyons. " ^ 
With the end of its poverty ended the very existence 
of the Church : property was the poison of which it 
died. Sylvester is, therefore, that mighty, bold, and 
crafty king prophesied of in Daniel ^ viii. 24, who 

1 [TLis was the doctrine so widely spi-dad by the Abbot Joachim 
of Fiore, Dolcino of Novara, and the Fraticelli The primitive 
Church had held that poverty was better than riches. That period 
had come to an end with Sylvester-. Since his time all popes had 
been prevaricators and deceivers, except Celestine V. He alone 
had understood and practised the blessed state of poverty. The 
Cathari argued that, as Constantine's empire was one of wrong and 
violence, and he had ceded it to Sylvester, the popes since Sylvester 
were successors to an unrighteous kingdom, not to an apostolic 
Church. This view had its effect also on the various prophecies 
which were circulated in the fourteenth century under the name of 
Joachim, and others. See a most interesting essay by Dr. Dullinger 
in Raumer's Hisloruch s Tasckenbuch, Leipzig, 1871, on Der Weis- 
sagungsglaube und das PropheUnihum in d r chrisUichen Zeit, pp. 264 
2(35, 282, 283.] [This essay is translated in the present volume.] 

2 Eainer. Sacchoni, in Martene Thesaur. v., 1775. iloneta, Advers. 
Cuihar. et Vald., p. 412. 

3 [ ' And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the trans- 
*'gressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and 
" miderstanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 175 

destroys "the people of the holy ones" — [das Volk 
der Heiligen ; — so the Hebrew, and the margin of 
the English version]. He is also Antichrist, the Man 
of Sin, and Son of Perdition, of whom St. Paul ^ speaks 
[2 Thess. ii. 3]. Valdez, on the other hand, the 
founder of the " Poor men of Lyons," is the Elias, 
who, according to the words of Christ (Matt. xvii. 1 1), 
shall come and restore all things. Later, however, 
the Waldenses discovered that a Church which for 
eight hundred years, from Sylvester to Valdez, had 
entirely vanished, and then had been called into 
existence again out of nothing, was a nonentity. 
They maintained, therefore, that their sect or church 
had not had its first beginning with Valdez, but had 
already been in existence in the time ^ of Sylvester, 
and that since that pope all the clergy, and those who 

" shall be mighty, but not by his own power ; and he shall destroy 
•-wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the 
"mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall 
"cause craft to prosper in his hand ; and he shall magnify himself 
" in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many : he shall also stand 
" up againist the Prince of princes, but he shall be broken without 
"hand." (Daniel viii. 23-25.) Only by considering Sylvester as 
having become, through the Donation, potentially a Gregory VII., 
an Innocent III., a Boniface VIII., can we understand how this 
prophecy could ever have been quoted as referring to him.] 

1 Moneta, iv., 263. 

2 Petrus de Pilichdorf; Contra Waldenses, in Bibl. Patr. Lugd, 
XXV., 278. 



176 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 

followed them, were damned. ^ The name Leonenses 
(i.e. of Lyons) then gave occasion to the invention of 
a Leo as the supposed founder of the sect. A pious 
man of this name in the time of Constantine, "disciple 
"and fellow of pope Sylvester," is said to have 
separated from the now wealthy pope, in order to 
show his abhorrence of the latter's avarice, and serve 
the Lord in voluntary ^ poverty. 

This notion, that utter poverty of the clergy, and 
rejection of all property, were among the conditions 
of the Church's existence, and that, cor^sequently, 
Constantine and Sylvester were the authors of the 
Church's ruin, was at that time so prevalent, and so 
much in harmony with the characteristics of the age, 
that it was always reappearing. The Dulcinists ^ or 
Apostolic Brethren at the beginning of the fourteenth 
century, who aspired to realise the primitive Church 
in its purity, as they conceived it, said that it was 
Sylvester who had reopened the doors of human 
society and of the Church to Satan. ^ Dolcino 

1 De Hoeresi Paup. de Lugd , in Martene, Thes. v., 1779. 

2 So Conrad Justinger in Bern, about a.d. 1420, in his clironicle 
of Bern. 

3 [The followers of Dolcino of Novara. Clement V. condemned 
him and others to death. His flesh was torn away from his body 
with hot pinchers, and his limbs then wrenched off, a d. 1304.] 

4 " Qiiando paupertas fuit mutata ab ecclesia per S. Silvestrura 
"tunc sanctitas vitse fuit subti-acta ecclesise et diabolus intra vit in 
"hunc mundum " So the Dulcinist Peter of Lucca, in Limborch 
Misl. inquis., p. 360. 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 177 

himself, in his first letter to Christendom, declared 
Sylvester to be the angel of Pergamus, who " dwells^ 
"where Satan's seat is." (Rev. ii. 13.) 

The English precursor of Protestantism, Wyclif*, 
shared this view. Constantine, he says, foolishly 
injured himself and the clergy, in burdening the 
Church so heavily with temporal goods. ^ In the 
Trialogusho. represents Antichrist as produced by the 
Donation of Constantine, and thence deduces the 
downfall of the Roman empire. ^ 

The days of the Donation of Constantine were, 
however, numbered. Already, in the year 1443, 
.^neas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards pope Pius II., 
then secretary to Frederick III., had recommended 
that emperor to summon a fresh council, at which, 
among other things, the question of the Donation of 
Constantine, "which caused perplexity to many souls," 
should on Frederick's proposal be finally decided. 
He himself was well known to be convinced of its 
unauthenticity, and he notices that neither in the 
ancient historians nor in Damasiis, that is, in the 
Pontifical book, was anything about it to be found. 
Its unauthenticity, therefore, was to be proclaimed by 

1 Thomas Waldensis, Doctrin. Fidei, ed. Blanciotti, ii.. 708, quotes 
his words from his hook De Papa. 

2 Tracts and Treatises, ed. Vaughan, 1845, p. 174. 



178 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 

the council, and -^neas joined with this the arriere 
pensee, that Frederick should again take possession of 
at least a part of the territory included in the Dona- 
tion, as belonging to the empire, and thus gain a firm 
basis in the peninsular for the imperial power, which 
otherwise would vanish into air.^ 

Three men appeared almost simultaneously in the 
middle of the fifteenth century, to prove on historical 
grounds, that the fact of the Donation no less than 
the document was an invention ; — Reginald Pecock, 
bishop of Chichester, cardinal Cusa, and Lorenzo 
Valla. In contrast to the uncertain vacillation ^ of 
Cusa, Pecock's exactness of historical investigation, 
an exactness proportionate to his knowledge of 
authorities, is very remarkable. ^ In Paris, where 
scholasticism still held the sceptre, criticism had not 

1 Pentahgus, in Pez. Thes. Anecd ir., p 3, 679. 

2 The passage out of his Concordaniia Calholica is printed in 
Brown, Fasciculus, i., 157. 

3 Repressor, p. 361-67. [Pecock gives eight reasons for main- 
taining that the Donation is a fiction, most of them tolerably 
conclusive ; e. g. the silence of Damasus, who mentions other small 
gifts of Constantine ; the silence of credible historians ; the fiict 
that Constantine bequeathed the very territory in question to his 
sons, and that Boniface IV. asked the emperor Phocas to give him 
the Pantheon as a church, a, u. 608, &c., &c. By "Damasus" 
Pecock no doubt means the Liber Vonlijicalis or Anastasius (falsely 
BO called), which was usually quoted as a work of pope Damasus in 
the Middle Ages.J 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 179 

advanced so far as this fifty years later, as Almain ' 
shows. Valla certainly went much farther than 
Pecock and Cusa; he undertook to prove that the 
pope had no right to the possession of Rome, and the 
States of the Church in particular, that he was " tantum 
** Vicarius Christi et non etiam Csesaris." His treatise 
was rather an artistic, rhetorical production, an elo- 
quent declamation, than a calm historical investiga- 
tion. 1 He himself considered it as the chef (Tceuvre 
of his eloquence. And yet after his treatise had been 
circulated everywhere, and had caused the greatest 
excitement, Valla was invited to Rome by Nicolas 
v., taken into the service of the pope, and received 
both from Nicholas V. and from Calixtus HI., various 
marks of favour, without any retractation whatever 
being required of him. 

The jurists meanwhile did not allow themselves to 
be put out of countenance, and held fast to the fiction 
for about a hundred years longer.^ Antonius, arch- 
bishop of Florence, calls attention to the fact that the 
passage in Gratian's decretals does not exist in the 

1 Poggiali, Memorie di Lorenzo Valla, Piacenza, 1790, p. 119. [A 
full account of this treatise of Valla is given in the Preshyterian 
Qwrterly Reciew, Jan. 1861, pp. 381-411, by Eav. E. H. Gillett, 
D.D] 

2 " Apiid Canonistas nulla ambiguitas est, quin perpetua firmitate 
" subnixa sit," says Peter of Andlo, De imperio Romano, p. 42, in the 
Trac talus varii de R. G. Imp. Regimine, Norimb., 1657. 



i8o THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



more ancient manuscripts of the collection, but at the 
same time, remarks that the legists (professors of civil 
law) disputed the legal validity of the Donation, while 
the canonists and theologians upheld it. He himself 
adopts the idea ^ of a universal dominion of the pope, 
resting on a divine dispensation, and accordingly sees 
in the Donation nothing more than a restitution. 
Meanwhile, defenders of its legal authenticity were 
not wanting even among the professors of civil law. 2 
Above all others Bartolo must be mentioned here 
(about 1350), to whom formerly, as Tiraboschi says, 
almost divine honour was paid. But as he calls atten- 
tion to the territory in which he and his hearers 
happen to be, he lets one divine his true meaning. ^ 
On the other hand, Nicolas Tudeschi, who was con- 
sidered by his contemporaries as the greatest of all 
canonists, declares that he who denies the Donation 
lies under the suspicion* of heresy. Cardinal P. P. 

1 The passage out of liis Pars Historialis is found in Brown, 
Fascic, i., 3 59. 

2 The jurists had discovered a passage in proof of the Donation 
even in the Corpus juris civilis. That is to say, Cod. 5, 27, in a law 
of the emperor Zeno, they read, " Divi Constantini, qui . . . Eoma- 
" num minuit imperium," instead of " munivti." 

3 " Videte, quia nos sumus in terris Ecclesise^ idcirco dico quod ilia 
«' donatio valeat." In proasm., ff. n. 14. 

4 Concil. 84, n. 2, in cap. per venerabilem, and elsewhere. Com- 
pare Francisci Bursati Consilia, Venet., 1572, i, 359. 

16 



THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. i8i 



Parisius, and the Spanish bishop, Arnold Albertinus, 
declare the same. Whosoever pronounces the Dona- 
tion to be null and void, says the latter, comes very 
near to heresy ; but whosoever maintains that it never 
took place at all is in a still worse case.^ Antonius ^ 
Rosellus, and Ludwig Gomez ^ are of the same opinion ; 
and cardinal Hieronymus Albano declares thus much 
at least, that there exist shameless persons who refuse 
to submit to the " unanimis consensus tot ac tantorum 
" Patrum," respecting the Donation ; or, according to 
the expression of Petrus Igneus, to the " tota acade- 
mia Canonistarum et Legistarum," with the whole 
host of theologians to boot.* But after cardinal 
Baronius had once for all confessed the unauthenticity 
of the Donation, all these voices, which had shortly 
before been so numerous and so loud, became dumb. 

Only one remark more need be added in conclusion. 
In consequence of its naturalization among the 
Greeks, the Donation in its full extent found admit- 
tance even into Russia, for it exists in the Konnczaia 
Kniga, the Corpus juris canonici of the Grasco-Sla- 
vonic Church, which was translated from the Greek 

1 Be Agnozendis Assert. Cath. et Hser.^ qusest., 17, n. 14. 

2 Tr ict. de Potest. Papse, Lugd. s. a., p. 320. 

3 In Bursatus, 1. c. 360'>. 

4 Bursatus, 1. c, quoted all these, and many others. 



1 82 THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 



by a Servian or Bulgarian, in the thirteenth or four- 
teenth century. * 

[One 2 further argument may be noticed, not as 
being needed, but as being in itself almost conclusive. 
Among the innumerable monuments of Roman art, 
from the fourth century onwards, some of which have 
direct reference to Constantine, no reference whatever 
is made to the Donation. Would it not have been a 
favourite subject, had it ever been a fact ? There 
appears to be only one representation in mediaeval art 
of the Donation of Constantine. It is a mosaic from 
the " zophoros, " or frieze of the Lateran basilica. 
Some of the details of the costumes show it to be not 
earlier than the twelfth centtr/y. On one side, " Rex 
" baptizatur et leprae sorde lavatur ; " on the other, 
Rex in scriptura Silvestro dat sua jura."] 

1 Wiener Jahrbi'icher der Literatur, Bd. xxiii., 265. 

2 The Testimony of the Catacombs and other Monuments of Chris* 
tian Art, etc., by Wharton B. Marriott, London, 1870, p. 99. 



VI. LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 



It will be necessary first to give the true history of 
these two men, the sources of which happily flow with 
all the clearness that could be wished. In this way 
the origin and tendency of the fable will become more 
plainly apparent. 

The emperor Constantius, under the influence of 
his eunuchs and certain Arian bishops, wished to force 
Arianism on the Church and bishops of the West, 
in that weakened and half ashamed form which the 
Eusebians had given to it. He, as well as his 
satellites, made use of all means of seduction, intimi- 
dation, and brutal violence, in order to accomplish 
this object. The Roman bishop, Liberius, first at 
Rome, and then at Milan, whither he had been 
summoned to the imperial court, steadfastly resisted 
the efl*orts of Constantius and his eunuch, Eusebius ; 
he was accordingly banished to Bersea, in Thrace, in 
the year 354. In his place Constantius caused the 
Roman deacon, Felix, to be consecrated by three 
Arian bishops (one of whom was the Anomsean 
Acacius of Caesarea), in the presence of three eunuchs. 
Felix had not formally rejected the Nicene Creed, but 

183 



i84 LIBERIUS AND FELIX, 



lie held ecclesiastical communion with Arians, which 
was all that the leaders of that party needed then ; for 
the remainder, viz., the predominance of their doctrine, 
would gradually follow of itself. In Rome, where 
Liberius was personally much beloved, the people re- 
refused to enter the churches in which Felix showed, 
himself. The whole clergy pubhcly promised, with 
an oath, before the congregation, that as long as 
Liberius lived they would recognise no other. It ended 
at last in an insurrection, in which some persons were 
killed. 1 When Constantius came to Rome two years 
later, he found the Roman populace still true to 
Liberius. The Roman ladies besought him earnestly 
to give them back their bishop, and he granted their 
request to this extent, that he decreed that Liberius 
and Felix (to the latter of whom the greatest number of 
the clergy had meanwhile joined themselves) should 
for the future rule the Roman Church in common. 
But the people assembled in the circus cried out, " One 
God, one Christ, one bishop." Liberius was, however, 
not recalled ; until in the following year, 357, broken 
by the sufferings and privations of his exile, pressed 
with threats, and deprived even of the man who 
hitherto had been left to him as servant and companion, 

1 Athanas. Bist ad monachos, p. 389. Faustini and Marcellini 
LibelL prffif. Socrat., 2, 37 ; Rufija., 1, 22 ; Hieron. Vir. lUustr., c. 
109 ; Chron. ad. a. 354. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 185 



the deacon Urbicus, he determined to sign a creed 
which was laid before him, to refuse to hold commu- 
nion with Athanasius, and in consequence with all 
decided Nicseans, and thus to enter the Arian court 
party. He signed the first formula of Sirmio, which 
was inoffensive in other respects, and left nothing to 
be desired but the Ilomousion. He went further ; 
he declared himself unable to hold communion with 
Athanasius, and accordingly entered into communion 
with the most decided Arians, such as Ursacius, 
Valcns, and Germinius. He courted the favour of the 
influential proteges of the emperor, the Arian bishops, 
Epictetus and Auxentius. Later on (in the year 
358), he was summoned from Ber^ea to the imperial 
court at Sirmio, and, at Constantius' bidding, signed 
a fresh and still worse formula, which the Arian and 
Scmiarian bishops, just then asscmiblcd at a synod in 
Sirmio, had drawn up. In this formula, with a view 
to obtaining an express rejection of the HomoUsion, 
the decisions of the synod at Antioch ^ against Paul 

1 Kot merely of the synod held at Antioch in 341, as Hefele 
slates {Concilien-Geschichte, i., 662); for this did not occupy itself 
either with the case of I'aul of Samof^ata, or with that of Photinns ; 
but also of the synod of 269, which rejected the Horaoiision in the 
false sense given to it by Paul of Samosata. The object now in 
view was no longer a mere abstaining from the use of the hated 
word, but a formal condemnation of it ; because, as was i-eprescnted, 
under the pretest of the Homoiision, certain persons .(Athanasius 



1 86 LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 

of Samosata, and the later ones against Photlnus and 
Marcellus of Ancyra, together with one of the formu- 
laries of the synod at Antioch, in A.D. 341, were 
incorporated. Liberius was thus reduced to accepting 
precisely the position of the Semiarians, now so 
influential with Constantius. He gave his adhesion 
to their expression, " substantial likeness," sacrificed 
the Nicene doctrine, and apprised the eastern Arians 
of his entry into their communion, and of his separation 
from Athanasius. It was chiefly on account of this 
weakness exhibited at Sirmio, under the double 
influence of the emperor and the bishops, and not on 
account of what had taken place before at Beraea, 
that Liberius drew upon himself the reproach of his 
contemporaries, of being heretical, and an ally of 
heretics. And, indeed, no other judgment was then 
possible. He had granted communion to the very 
worst Arians, such as Epictetus of Centuncellae and 
Auxentius of Milan.^ It was Fortunatianus, bishop 

and all who held firmly to the Nicene doctrine) wished to set up a 
sect of their own. Sozomen, 4, 15. Philostorgius (4, 3), moreover, 
does not saj, as Hefele represents, that Liberius signed the second 
Sirmian formula. Of the one signed at Beraea he says nothing 
whatever ; but he does mention the one accepted by Liberius after- 
wards at Sirmio, that is the third; and of this he says quite correctly, 
and in agreement with Sozomen, that Liberius thereby condemned 
the Homoiision and Athanasius. 

1 Hilar, de syn., Opp,, ii., 464 ; Frag., 6, ii., 680 ; Sozom., 4, 15, 
The letters of Liberius in Coustanfc, Ujpistolse Pontiff., 442 sqq. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 187 

of Aquileia, who, according to Jerome, persuaded 
Liberius to such apostasy. 

This was the price at which Liberius purchased his 
return to Rome, where the people joyfully welcomed 
the bishop, whom they personally loved in spite of 
his fall. The whole community was, and remained, 
Catholic. The people of the West had as yet occupied 
itself but Httle with the controversies about the con- 
substantiality of the Son with the Father ; they 
scarcely understood the question at issue or its import. 
Liberius was therefore able quietly to resume his 
office without retracting. It had been determined at 
Sirmio, that Liberius and Felix should preside over 
the Church of Rome together ; for Felix, in conse- 
quence of his holding communion with the Arian 
bishops, was still high in favour at court. At Rome, 
however, disturbances with wide reaching conse- 
quences took place. The clergy were divided, for the 
majority had broken the oath of fidelity which they 
had taken to Liberius before his banishment, and had 
recognised Felix. But the latter was obliged to 
withdraw from the city, because the people would not 
tolerate him ; and long afterwards when he attempted 
to get possession of a church on the other side of the 
Tiber, he was again driven out. He lived eight years 
from that time without being able to set foot in Rome ; 



i88 LTBERIUS AND FELIX, 



but after his death (November 22nd, 365) Liberlus 
pardoned the clergy of his party, and allowed them 
to resume their position. ^ 

Nothing is told us of Liberius own position. He 
appears not to have retracted what he did at Bersea 
and Sirmio, and not to have ceased to hold com- 
munion with the Arians ; otherwise Constantius would 
not have allowed him to remain long in Rom.e. The 
synod of Rimini however, towards the end of the 
year 359, and in the year 360, gave him an oppor- 
tunity of proving his orthodoxy. He rejected the 
synod, and ordered that those who had taken part in 
it should be admitted to communion only on con- 
dition of retracting ; and it was he vA\o, in the year 
366, demanded of the Semiarians an adhesion to the 
Homousion, which he had formerly rejected himself, 
as a sine qua non of their being recognised by the 
Church. He might have been led astray at Sirmio, 
in that the misuse which Paul of Samosata, and Mar- 
cellus of Ancyra, and Photinus had made of the 
Homousion was represented to him as a just groun-i 
for refraining from using so double-edged a weapon 
as this word had proved, and for forbidding the 
employment of it ; moreover, they had held up to 

1 Marcellini et Faustln. ad lihell. prec. praf. Both these Roman 
priests were eye-witnesses, and Jerome confirms their statement. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 189 

him the authority of the synod of 269. When he 
assented to the substantial likeness of the Son to the 
Father, he might (Hke other otherwise good cathoHcs 
of that time) have been convinced, that in the God- 
head substantial equahty and substantial likeness are 
necessarily equivalent. Thus much may, perhaps, be 
said in extenuation of his error ; but it certainly gives 
no excuse for his rejection of Athanasius, or for his 
entering into communion with the leaders of the 
Arian party. He must however have made good this 
grievous error even before the synod of Rimini was 
held (359). Without doubt events since 358 had 
taught him that that dogmatic word was indeed quite 
indispensable for the Church ; that it, as he says in 
his epistle to the bishops of the East, in the year 366, 
was " the sure and impregnable bulwark, against 
which all attacks and stratagems of Arianism shat- 
" tered." ^ 

Liberius, therefore, at no time in his life was 
actually heretical ; but his eagerness to see himself 
freed from the sufferings of a lonely exile and restored 
to the bosom of his people, who loved and honoured 
him, blinded him. He sacrificed the Church to the 
Arians, he perplexed the consciences of his people in 
regard to Church matters, and one knows, of course, 

1 In Coustant, jSJpp. Rom. Pontiffs p. 460. 



IQO LIBERIUS AND FELIX, 

that Hilary anathematized him. But he remained 
throughout the rightful bishop of Rome ; and his oppo- 
nent, Felix, was and remained an illegitimate intruder, 
in respect to the Arian trouble still more culpable than 
Liberius. For Felix received violent handling from no 
one, and obtained and kept his position only by getting 
himself ordained by Arians, and by ensuring them 
communion ; especially the court bishops, and those 
who hung about the emperor. Whereas Liberius did 
not succumb to the ill usage to which he was subjected 
until after several years of steadfast endurance. . 

At the death of Liberius, in the year 366, the split 
which the intrusion of Felix and the secession of 
many of the clergy to him had called into existence, 
broke out afresh, this time with bloodshed. A nu- 
merous faction of the people, urged on by some of the 
clergy, wished to decree that none of those who, in 
violation of their oath, had recognised Felix ten years 
before, should succeed to the office of bishop. On 
this ground, Ursinus was set up in opposition to 
Damasus, who had been elected by a majority of the 
clergy. A regular civil war was the consequence. 
They fought in the streets and in the churches with 
such animosity, that on one occasion, ^ one hundred 
and thirty-seven dead bodies, mostly from the faction 

1 Ammian. Marccll., 1-, 27, 3. 12. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 191 

of Ursinus, were found in the Sicinian basilica. 
Damasus himself could not restrain his own party ; 
and only by the banishment of Ursinus and seven 
others of this faction, and by the strong measures of 
the prefect Juvencus, was some sort of order at length 
restored in the city. The supporters of Ursinus, 
however, continued their schism and their meetings 
in the cemeteries of the martyrs, which led to fresh 
bloodshed and fresh banishment of clergy belonging 
to this faction. Thus passed several years in per- 
petual disquietude ; and thus from that violent act on 
the part of Constantius there grew so long afterwards 
the bitter fruit of a disturbance in the Church, which 
was not completely healed until a whole generation 
had died out. 

It is very remarkable that the later myth or inten- 
tional fiction, which dates from the sixth or seventh 
century, has metamorphosed this history entirely to 
the disadvantage of Liberius, and in favour of Felix, 
who was dubbed an ecclesiastical hero and martyr. 
And it came to this ; that this perjured antipope, 
consecrated by fanatical Arians, and intruded on the 
Romans only by the temporal power, was honoured 
as a saint, and reckoned in the list of the popes as 
pope Fehx II. ; while Liberius, even in Rome itcelf. 



192 LIBERIUS AND FELIX, 



was represented as a blood-stained tyrant, a heretic, 
and persecutor of the faithful. 

One cannot fail to see that all this was invented 
with a view to placing the cause of that numerous 
portion of the Roman clergy who broke their oath 
and adhered to Felix, in a favourable light, and to 
represent them as the rightful party, who had 
withstood heresy and the heretical pope, and had 
been persecuted on that account. Nevertheless, 
these fictions must be assigned to a late period, the 
sixth or seventh century, as it would appear, when 
only hazy recollections of the events of the fourth 
century still survived in Rome, and when the story of 
the Roman baptism of Constantine, with its train of 
myths, had already disturbed all historic consciousness 
there, and had thrown into confusion the historical 
continuity and order of events. There are three 
documents in which the fictitious history was in- 
corporated, and from which all later ones have been 
made : the biographies of Liberius and of Felix in the 
Liber Pontijicalis, the Acts of Felix, first edited by 
Mombritius, and the Acts of EitsehiiLS. ^ 

These Acts have manifestly been invented with 

1 They are to be found in the Baluze-Mansi Collection, i., 33, and 
throughout the whole of the Middle Ages were constantly used and 
copied. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 193 

a view to branding the memory of Libenus, and 
representing him in the most glaring way as an 
heretical apostate and persecutor of the Catholic 
confessors, so that the party of Felix might appear 
as the oppressed orthodox. Hence the narrator 
makes pope Damasu3 condemn Liberius in a synod 
of twenty-eight bishops and twenty-five priests, 
immediately after Liberius* death. At the same 
time, also, this opportunity was seized, in order to 
give a fresh security against the contradicting 
testimon)^ of antiquity to the story of the Roman 
baptism of Constantine, — the pet story of those by 
whom and for whom the invention was made. Hence 
the biography of Felix begins with a statement, 
made with affected precision, to the effect that he 
had declared the emperor Constantius, son of Con- 
stantine, a heretic, who had got himself baptized a 
second time by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, ^ in 
the villa Aquila (Achyro), near to Nicomedia, 

Here, then, what the father did is transferred to the 
son, and the intention in Constantine's case to put 
Rome in the place of Nicomedia, and Sylvester 
in the place of Eusebius, is unmiistakeable. 

The following narrative was substituted in place of 



1 In Vignoli, i., 119. 
17 



194 LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 

the true one in the two first-mentioned documents, 
which reaily hang together. 

When Constantius banished Liberlus on account 
of his defence of tlie CathoHc faith, the Roman 
clergy elected and consecrated the presbyter ^ Felix 
as bishop, 2 under the advice and with the consent 
of Liberius. Felix forthwith holds a council of forty- 
eight bishops, and finds here that two presbyters, ^ 
Ursacius and Valens, agree with Constantius, and 
condemns them. The two persuade Constantius, 
and with his consent go to Liberius and offer him 
return from banishment on these terms : — that there 
should be communion between Arians and orthodox, 
but that the latter should not be required to be 

1 Felis -was only a deacon. Eufinus, 2, 22 ; Marcellin. Lihell.Prec. 
preef. 

2 This TTonld only have been possible if Liberius had abdicated 
at the same time, which he did not do. That one bishop should 
appoint another co-ordinately with himself, or cause himself to be 
represented by another during his absence, was contrary to eccle- 
siastical law, especially to one of the Kicene canons. When after 
all Valerius, bishop of Hippo, did so, Augustine himself, whom he 
caused to be consecrated with the permission of the primate of 
Carthage, found that is was " contra morem ecclesise," and accord- 
ingly gave orders that at every ordination the canons should be 
read beforehand, in order that such a transgression might not occur 
again. — ^Possid. Vit. Aug., c. 8. 

3 Both were bishops, Ursacius of Singidon in Mysia, Valens of 
Mursa in Pannonia, and had no relations whatever to the Eoman 
Church. The main supporter of Arianism in the Roman territory 
Tvas Epictetus, bishop of Circumcellse. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 195 



re-baptized. ^ Liberius consents, comes back, and 
takes up his abode in the cemetery of St. Agnes 
with the emperor's sister, Constantia. ^ She is urged 
to gain admittance for him into Rome by intercession 
with her brother, but decHnes as a true catholic. 
Constantius, however, summons Liberius to Rome 
without the intervention of his sister by the advice of 
the Arians, gets together a council of heretics, and 
with its help deposes the catholic Felix from his 
episcopal 3 office. The very same day a bloody 
persecution commences, conducted by Constantius 
and Liberius in concert. The presbyter Eusebius 
(who distinguishes himself by his courage and catholic 
zeal, and gathers the people together in his house) 
reproaches the emperor and Liberius with their 
crime, declares to the latter that he is no longer 
in any way the rightful follower of Julius because he 
had fallen from the faith, and to both, that, in satanic 
blindness, they have driven out the catholic blameless 
Felix. Whereupon Constantius, by the advice of 
Liberius, has him shut up in a deep hole only four 

1 Thete was no discussion about re-baptism at that time, or for a 
long time afterwards. The Arians before Eunomius considered 
catholic baptism to be valid. 

2 A confusion with the sister of Constantino the Great. 

3 All this time, and so long as Liberius was in office there, Con- 
stantius was not in Eome. The naiTative, however, gives one to 
imdurstand that he lived there regularly. 



196 LIBERIUS AND FELIX, 

feet broad, in which he is found dead at the end 
of seven months. The presbyters, Gregory and 
Orosius, relations of Eusebius, bury him ; upon 
which the emperor gives orders to Shut up Gregory 
aHye in the same vault in which they had placed the 
corpse of Eusebius. Orosius drags him out from the 
vault by night half dead ; he dies, however, in his 
arms, whereupon the other, Orosius, records the whole 
history. Felix, who had reproached the emperor 
with his re-baptism, is beheaded by the emperor's 
command. The persecution rages in Rome until the 
death of Liberius. Constantius publishes an edict 
that every one who does not join Liberius shall 
be executed without trial. Clergy and laity are now 
murdered in the streets and in the churches. At last 
Liberius dies, and Damas.us brands his memory with 
infamy in a synod. 

The description in the Acts of Eusebius is con- 
siderably more highly coloured than the repre- 
sentation in the Liber PontificaliSy where the cir- 
cumstances are toned down somewhat ; but the 
object in view, viz., to quash Liberius and make him 
appear as Constantius' companion in guilt, shines 
through it all from beginning to end. That the acts 
of Eusebius were composed in the interest of the 
antipope Felix, has been already remarked by 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 197 

Cavalcanti. ^ It appears to me that there was another 
object joined with this, viz., to place the bloody 
scenes, which occurred in consequence of the divided 
election of Ursinus and Damasus, and which may 
have left behind them a misty recollection even two 
centuries later in Rome, in a light more favourable 
to the clergy of the time; and, by this means, the 
events were ante-dated by two years, and represented 
as persecutions of the staunch catholic clergy by the 
two Arians, the pope and the emperor. And they 
even went so far in their rejection of Liberius and 
efforts to put Felix in his place, that in the chro- 
nological notices of the Liberian basilica, built by 
that very pope, they passed Liberius over altogether, 
and placed Felix alone between Julius and Damasus. 

Thus, then, Felix was gradually thrust into the 
lists of the popes, the liturgies, and martyrologies, as 
rightful pope and a holy martyr ; not, however, until 
a late date, and, as regards the martyrologies, only 
slowly. Optatus and Augustinus had passed him 
over in their lists of the bishops of Rome. The 
twenty-ninth of July was the day which had been 
dedicated to his memory. But here, when the 
calendars and martyrologies were examined and 
compared, the deception became palpably manifest, 

1 Vindiciss Rom. Pontiff. 



iqS . LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 

and showed that the Feh'x there celebrated was quite 
a different one ; and that not until the eighth century, 
after the false legends about Felix and Eusebius had 
been forged, did it occur to people to declare that this 
Felix was the rival of Liberius. The oldest document 
as yet known is the Roman calendar, which Martene 
has published in the fifth volume of his Thesaitriis. 
He assigns it to the beginning of the fifth century ; 
and rightly, for, with a single exception (Sylvester), it 
contains festivals of martyrs only, and Sylvester is the 
latest of the saints mentioned in it. Hence Damasus, 
though canonised at an early date, is wanting. Here, 
then, the twenty-eighth of July was marked as ^ 
nataHs s. Felicis, SimpHcii, Faustini, et Beatricis. In 
all other cases the designation *' papa" is added to the 
names of the popes in this calendar. Several 
martyrologies, which bear the name of St. Jerome, 
and, 2 judging from their chief contents, belong to the 
fifth century (the period before Cassiodorus), agree 
with this. That of Bede likewise, v/ithout mention- 
ing Rome. Then the Martyrologiitm Ottobonianiim 
of the tenth, and the Kalendariicm Laiireshamense ^ 

_ So also the Saeramentariiim Gregorianum. Elsewhere it is 
always the twenty-ninth. 

2 In Martene, Thes. iii., 1558, 

8 Both in Giorgi's edition of Ado, pf 683, 692, 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 199 

of the end of the nhith century. On the other hand, 
that of St. Jerome in D'Achery separates Felix from 
the three others which manifestly belong to Rome, 
and transfers ^ him to Africa. The Vatican calendar 
itself, of the beginning of the eleventh century, 2 
agrees also with this. But how Felix got transferred 
from Africa to Rome is explained by a martyrology 
of Auxerre, which falls well into the end of the ninth 
century (the latest of the numerous popes men- 
tioned in it is Zacharias), (741-752) and is especially 
rich in Roman material, and accurate in local 
notices ; so that there can be no doubt as to its 
Roman origin. This is what it says at the twenty- 
ninth of July : — " Romae via Aureha translatio 
"corporis beati Felicis episcopi et martyris qui iv. 
*'idus Novembris martyrio coronatus est. Eodem 
**die ss. mm. Simplicii, Faustinii et s. Beatricis m. 
** sororis eorum." ^ It appears, therefore, that the 
bones of the African martyr, Felix, were brought to 
Rome, and that only on account of this translation, 
which took place on the twenty-ninth of July, Fenx 
was joined with the Roman martyrs Simplicius, 
Faustinus, and Beatrix, to whom this day was 

1 Spicilej., ii., 15, nov. ed. 

2 In Giorgi, p. 699. 

3 lu Martene, Coll. AmpL, vi., 712. 



200 LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 



already dedicated. Thus there are other martyr- 
ologies and missals, in which Felix is not found, but 
only the three others. In the so-called Sacrainen- 
tariicm of Gelasius he is wanting also, although 
Simplicius, Faustinus, and Viatrix (or Beatrix) are 
celebrated. ^ In the later Gregorian Sacrai7te?itarmm, 
on the other hand, the day is given as the birthday of 
the four saints, but in such a way that in the Oratio 
Felix alone is celebrated, and that as "martyr et 
" pontifex." In the martyrology of the year 826, 2 
found at Corbie, as well as in the Martyrologiutn 
Morhacense, and in the Calendarium Anglicafium, 
only Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrix are men- 
tioned.^ Most of them simply mention Felix without 
further designation, along with the other three ; or, 
like the Neapolitan of the ninth century, say^ " Felicis 
" et Simplicii or, " in Africa Fehcis," &c., as the 
calendar of Stablo, 

With the eighth century, however, begins, on the 
other hand, the Hne of calendars and martyrologies 
which make Felix a pope, and of course mean one to 

1 In Muratori, Liturgia Romana Vetuc, i., 658 ; ii., 106. 

2 D'Achery, ^picU., ii., 66. 

3 The Calendarium Anglicnnum (of the year 1000) in Martene 
Coll. amply vi., 655. The Martyrologium Morbacense in Martene, 
Thesaur., iii., 1570. 

2 In Mai, Coll., v., 63. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 201 



understand the antipope of a.d. 356. The first is the 
Roman calendar of the middle of the eighth century, 
edited by Fronto. ^ Next to this comes the martyr- 
ology which Rosweyde was the first to print ; which, 
however, is not a Roman one, as the editor and the 
BoUandists have stated. 2 It already contains the 
fable of Felix's martyrdom under Constantius. It is 
from this source, or from' the legends, or from the 
book of the popes, that Ado has drawn ; and the 
subsequent martyrologists for the most part have 
copied him. Usuard, Notker, Rabanus, Wandelbert, 
follow in the same track. 

St. Eusebius, celebrated on the fourteenth of 
August, is found in almost all calendars and martyr- 
ologies, with the exception of the oldest, which belongs 
to the fifth century. This one, however, mentions 
the church of St. Eusebius as already existing in 
Rome, because here was a " statio " on the Friday in 
the fourth Vv^eek of Lent. In the martyrologies of St. 
Jerome, and in that of Bede, one reads at the four- 
teenth of August, " Eusebii tituli conditoris." From 
which it appears that his festival in the first instance 
was celebrated only in the church which he had built, 

1 Epistolx et Dissert. Fccles., ed. Veron, 1733, p. 185. Exaratum 
intra tempora Gregorii II. and III., according to Borgia, De Ciucq 
Vaiicana. 

2 See on this point argument of Fronto, 1. c, p. 137. 



202 LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 



thence passed into the Roman calendars, and from 
them into those of other countries. Nearer notices of 
him do not exist, and even from the sixth century 
and further were not to be found. Hence it was all 
the more easy for the intentional fiction, which aimed 
at distorting the history of Liberius and Felix, to 
make use of his name, and transform him into the 
hero of a tragedy, which should set forth the Arianism 
and cruelty of Liberius in strong colours. 

Here, then, as in other cases, it was the Liber 
Pontificalis that created the new tradition, which has 
influenced chroniclers and the papal biographers. 
The glaring contradictions of the Liber Pontificalis ^ 
which resulted from the unthinking interpolations of 
later hands, were at that time not observed. In the 
biography of Liberius, which was correctly composed 
before any one thought of giving Felix a special 
biographical article, Felix dies peacefully (requievit 
in pace) on his own estate, on the first of August. 
On the other hand, in the article respecting him, a 
few lines farther on, he is beheaded with many clergy 
and laity, on the eleventh of November. The author 
of this article, in order that nothing should be wanting 
for Felix's papal dignity, wished to represent him also 
as the builder of a church, and so represents him as 
again building the very "Basilica in via AureHa,'* 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 203 

which in the article on Felix the First (A.D. 269-275) 
had already been mentioned as Felix's work. All 
the following writers of papal history have therefore 
naturally followed this account : — Pseudo-Luitprand, 
Abbo of Fleury, the anonymous chronographer in 
Pez,i Martinus Polonus, Leo of Orvieto, Bernard 
Guidonis, Amalricus Augerii. Felix is set forth as 
the thirty-ninth rightful pope. The revelation of the 
secret, that Constantius had caused himself to be 
re-baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, costs him his 
life, and Liberius reigned for five years, as an Arian, 
and by his Arianism caused the martyrdom of many 
clergy and laity. Nevertheless, all that he did and 
ordered was declared null and void after his death by 
Damasus. Bernard Guidonis makes the addition of 
a martyrdom, which Eusebius is made to endure 
because he proclaimed Liberius to be a heretic.^ 

From ^that time onwards the theologians accom- 
modated themselves to the prevailing view, especially 
in Rome itself. Who does not know, says the Roman 
presbyter Auxilius, the defender of Formosus, that 
Liberius gave his assent to the Arian heresy, and that 
at his instigation the most horrible abominations were 
practised ? ^ And towards the middle of the twelfth 

1 Thes. Anecd., i., p. 343. 2 In Mai, S^icileg.^ vi., 60, 
8 De Ordin., i., 25. 



204 LIBERIUS AND FELIX, 

century Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, reproaches the 
Greeks, because Constantius had caused Felix to be 
put to death for reveahng the fact of his second 
baptism. But he makes excuses for Liberius, who no 
doubt had allowed much that was heretical, but had 
nevertheless steadfastly refused to allow himself to be 
re-baptized. ^ 

The Abbot Hugo of Flavlgny (1090-1102) goes a 
step farther in his chronicle ; he makes Liberius also 
receive baptism a second time as a thorough ^ Arian. 
Eccard, in his most influential chronicle, ^ Romuald 
of Salerno, the papal historian Tolomeo of Lucca, the 
EulogiiLin of the monk of Malmesburg, all follow the 
usual fabulous tradition, that Liberius remained till 
the day of his death — six, or (according to Tolomeo ^) 
eight years — persistently heretical, while Felix is the 
catholic martyr. Nevertheless, with Marianus Scotus, 
Gottfried of Viterbo, and Robert Abolant, the au- 
thority of Jerome is still so powerful, that they narrate 
how Felix was violently thrust into office by the 
Arians. 

When at last the era of historical criticism and the- 
ological investigation came in with the sixteenth 

2 Dialog., iii., 21, in D'Achery, Spicily i., 207. 

3 In Pertz, x., 301. 

4 Pertz, viii., 113. 

5 " Vizit in hoc errore annis octo." — Muratori, SS. It.j xi., p. S3 3. 



r 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 205 

century, no small amount of helplessness was exhibited. 
Hitherto Felix had been regarded as rightful pope, 
and the time of his pontificate was reckoned at a year 
and somewhat more. According to this view, Lib- 
erius would be deprived of his office by sentence of the 
church, on account of his lapse into Arianism, and 
then Felix came in as rightful pope, until at the end of 
a year he suffered martyrdom. Liberius, however, is 
said to have survived him by several years, and to 
have remained an Arian till his death. He could not 
therefore again become lawful pope after the death of 
Felix. Nor was the hypothesis of a vacancy of the 
see for several years either admissible or attempted 
On the contrary, an interregnum of thirty-eight days 
is all that the Liber Pontificalis records after the 
death of Felix. This created a difficulty for the theolo- 
gians, of which they did not know how to dispose, if 
Felix was to be retained in his position as pope and 
saint ; and the historians could not deny the irrecon- 
cileable contradiction to all contemporary inform- 
ation. Cardinal Baronius had already composed a 
treatise to show that Felix was neither a saint nor a 
pope. Gregory XHI. had appointed a special con- 
gregation to decide the question. And then (1582) 
during some excavations under an altar dedicated to 
SS. Cosmo and Damian, a body was found with an 

18 



2o6 ^ LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 



inscription on stone — " Corpus S. Felicis Papae -et 
Martyris qui condemnavit Constantium." The stone 
with the inscription vanished again soon afterwards, 
and Schelstrate ^ laments that search was made for 
it in vain. The wording of the inscription in itself 
would have been quite sufficient to prove it at once 
to be the clumsy invention of a later age. But Bar- 
onius and the congregation thought otherwise.; and 
so FeHx kept his place as pope and martyr in the 
corrected Roman martyrology. Nevertheless, the 
place was 2 expunged from the subsequent editions 
of the older Roman breviaries, in which the martyr- 
dom of Eusebius, for merely rebuking the Arianism 
of Liberius, was related in the words of Ado. More- 
over in the Oratio of the breviary the designation of 
FeHx as " pope " was removed. But even such a man 
as Bossuet could allow himself, on the strength of 
documents so palpably forged, to represent Liberius 
as an obstinate heretic and bloody persecutor of true ^ 
catholics. Still he contends against Baronius, who 
had accepted the wholesale persecution and butchery 
of the catholics in Rome under Liberius as a literal 
fact. 

1 Antiquit. lUustr., i. 

2 See Launoi, Epist. 5, p, 41. 

3 Defens. Bed. Gall., p. 3, 1. 9, c. 33. 



LIBERIUS AND FELIX, ' 207 

To complete it all, in the year 1790, a Roman 
ecclesiastic, Paul Anton Paoli,^ undertook in a lengthy- 
work to prove the legitimacy of Felix, and the 
authenticity of his sufferings and acts. He has 
succeeded, he says, in accomplishing the feat, hitherto 
considered an impossibility, of making dot/i the rivals, 
Liberius and Felix, appear as innocent and guiltless, 
both of them together, as legitimate popes. All, 
according to him, rests upon misunderstandings and 
untrue reports. Athanasius, Hilary, Jerome, all their 
contemporaries, have been found to be in uninten- 
tional and unavoidable error. In Rome men were 
obliged to believe that the papal chair became vacant 
through Liberius' guilt, which, however, in reality 
was not the case, and hence Fehx was elected. The 
Acts of Eusebius are genuine and contemporary. All 
the awkward statements which they contain are set 
aside by the convenient and never-failing resource of 
supposing them to be later interpolations. Moreover, 
the author has fortunately discovered that Felix lived 
concealed in the neighbourhood of Rome for thirty- 
four years after he was driven out of the city; 
although contemporaneous evidence makes him al- 
ready dead in the year 365, and, although there was 

1 Di San Felice Secondo Papa e Martire Disseriazzioni, Eoma, 1790, 
With a supplement of over 400 pages quartp. 



2o8 * LIBERIUS AND FELIX. 

no conceivable reason for his concealment, after the 
death of Constantius. 

The whole is a structure of ill-conceived hypotheses 
and conjectures, which crumbles to dust at the first 
breath of sober historical investigation. 

That Felix was never rightful bishop of Rome, but 
a mere tool of the Arians, foisted upon the people, 
and successfully rejected by them, has been admitted 
by all the better ecclesiastical historians, Panvinius, 
Lupus, Hermant, Tillemont, Natalis Alexander, 
Fleury, Baillet, Coutant, Ceillier. In Rome itself 
cardinal Orsi ^ has let his own view, which agrees with 
theirs, shine through, partly by a meaning silence, 
partly by the appellation " antipope," which he gives 
to Felix, though he only mentions him once in passing. 
Saccarelli^ has shown, quite decisively and with 
correct judgment, that it is historically necessary to 
strike out Felix from the list of Roman bishops. 
Saccarelli's contemporary, the Augustinian monk 
Berti, in one of his treatises on ecclesiastical history, 
has stated the reasons usually given for and against 
Felix having a place in the list of the popes in such a 
way, that he makes one sensible of the weakness of 
the former ; and then ^ adds, as if by way of a joke, 

1 Istori. Eccles., vi , 201, ed. in 12mo. 

2 Hist. Eccles., v., 334. Rome, 1777. 

3 " Eeeret, ut aiunt, in aqua : neque enim tardita,te ingenioli mei 



LTBERIUS AND FELIX. 



209 



that he does not venture to decide. Later on, three 
other Roman authors, jMovaes, Sangallo, and Palma, 
the two first in their biographies of the popes, the 
last in his ecclesiastical history, have given up the 
case ^ of Felix as untenable.^ 

*' percipere possum, qnomodo, sedente Liberio, Felix verus Pontifex 
" sit habendus," etc. — Historia Eccles. s. Dissert, hist., iii., 466, Aug. 
1761. This reluctance to speak liis meaning openly is easily ex- 
plained by the fact, that cardinal Lambertini (afterwards pope 
Benedict XIV.) in his work Be Canoniz. Sanctorum, 1, 4, p. 2. c. 27, 
14, had just maintained, to the no small astonishment of all who 
were acquainted with ecclesiaGtlcal antiquity, "De S. Felicis 11^ 
"sanctitate et martyrio nullam amplius superesse dubitationem, sed 
" disputari ab eruditis duntaxat de qualitate rationeque martyrii." 
When therefore cardinal Borgia, in his Apologia del Pontificato Bene- 
detto X., says, " passa quasi per dimostrata a legittimitt\ del ponti- 
''ficato di St. Felice per quelli che suppcngono la caduta di Liberio," 
he is stating what is manifestly incorrect. 

1 Novaes, Elementi della Storia de^ Sommi Poniefici, Eoma, 1821^ 
1, 128; Sangallo, Gett, aV Pontef., iii., 496; Palma, Prozleciiones 
Hist. Ecclcs. ii., 129. 

2 [In the busts of the popes in the cathedral at Sienna the bust of 
Pope Joan has been transformed into pope Zacharias. (See p. 30.) 
Felix, however, retains his place there to this day.] 




VII. ANASTASIUS II. 



Dante sees in hell, in the circle of false teachers and 
their followers, the cover of a large tomb, with an 
inscription stating that this tomb contains pope ^ 

Anastasius, 

"Whom out of the right way Photimis drew." 

Now, it must always be a matter for astonishment 
that the great poet, when it occurred to him to 
represent a pope as suffering the fate of a heretic, 
should have chosen precisely this one, one of the least 
known in the Roman list One would have thought 

1 Inf. xi., 9. 

[E quivi per 1' orribile soperchio 
Del puzzo, che '1 profondo abisso gitta 
Ci raccostammo dietro ad un coperchio 
D'un grand' avello, ov' io vidi una scritta, 
Che diceva : " Anastagio Papa guardo, 
Lo qual trasse Fotino della via dritta" — xi., 4-9. 
And there by reason of the horrible 

Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out, 
We drew ourselves aside behind the cover 
Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing, 
Which said : " Pope Anastasius I hold, 
Whom out of the right way Photinus drew." 

Longfellow's Translation. 
Tjie commentators are not agreed concerning the person who is 
" here mentioned as a follower of the heretical Photinus. By some 

he is supposed to have been Anastasius II. \ by others, IV, ; while a 

210 



ANASTASIUS IL 



211 



that Liberlus or Honorlus would have been much 
more ready to his hand for this purpose, the first 
especially, who, according to the account which 
prevailed everywhere in the Middle Ages, ruled at 
Rome for several years before his death as a 
notorious Arian, so that, as was supposed, ardent 
catholics died as martyrs because of him. 

It was Gratian's Decretum which, directly or 
indirectly, determined the Florentine poet in his 
choice. That is to say, Gratian, according to the 
precedent of the Ivonian decretal, inserted a passage 
from the Pontifical ^ book, in which it is said that 

"third set, jealous of the integrity of the papal faith, contend that 
" our poet has confounded him with Anastasius I., emperor of the 
" East. Fazio degli Uberti, like our author, makes him a pope : — 
" Anastasio papa in quel tempo era 

" Di Fotin vago a mal grade de sui, — Dittamondo, ii., 14." 

Gary's note in loco. 

Those who would save the pope at the expense of the emperor say 
that Photinus died before the time of pope Anastasius II. Both 
pope and emperor were called heretical out of respect to the 
memory of Acacius. But the emperor need not be considered here . 
Dante probably knew what he meant, and when he says pope, 
means pope, and not emperor,] 

1 Decret., i., dist. 19, 9. [G-ratian's Decretum appeared at Bologna, 
the first school of law in Europe, about 1150. It combined the 
Isidorian forgeries with those of Deusdedit, Anselm, Gregory of 
Pavia, and Gratian himself. It displaced all the older collections 
of canon law, and became the usual manual for canonists and theolo- 
gians. No book has ever had such influence in the Church, although 
it teems with errors, both intentional and unintentional. For further 
particulars, see Janus, Der Fapst und das Concil, iii., p. 154-162.] 



212 



ANASTASIUS IT, 



many persons m Rome separated themselves from 
the company of Pope Anastasius, because he had 
entered into church communion with the deacon 
Photinus of Thessalonica, and intended secretly to 
bring Acacius again into honour in the Church. For 
which reason God had punished him with sudden 
death. Throughout the Middle Ages Gratian's 
Decretum^ was accounted a decisive authority; it did 
not readily occur to any one to doubt the facts and 
doctrines stated in it ; and hence it comes to pass that 
the memory of pope Anastasius II. has come down 
to posterity as that of a man prone to heresy, from 
whose comm.ur.ion in the Church it was right to 
withdraw oneself, pope though he was ; and only by 
his sudden death was still greater mischief warded off 
from the Church. Now what was there to justify this 
view ? 

The Byzantine emperors were perpetually finding 
themselves impelled by the political condition of the 
empire to endeavour to reconcile the powerful party 
of the Monophysites to the Church, and thus heal, 
not merely an ecclesiastical, but also a political 
disorder, and ward off the grave danger which was 

1 [It became comparatively obsolete after Gregory IX. caused the 
five books of Decretals to be published by Eaimond de Pennafort in 
1234. It was, in factji insufficient for the increasing usurpations of 
the popes.] 



ANASTASIUS 11. 



213 



threatening the State. With this object, the emperor 
Zeno, advised by Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, 
had published the Henoticon (482), which declared 
the binding authority and dogmatic decisions of the 
council of Chalcedon, so hateful to all Monophysites, 
to be an open question. This ended in pope Felix II. 
calling a synod, and declaring Acacius anathema. 
Acacius himself certainly remained all the while 
catholic in his doctrine, but he sacrificed the council 
of Chalcedon for the sake of peace, and entered into 
church communion with all Monophysites who had 
accepted the Henoticon, Acacius had almost the 
whole East on his side, and as Rome broke off from 
every one who remained in communion with Acacius, 
a schism in the Church between East and West for 
thirty-five years was the consequence. 

The successors of Acacius were bidden to strike 
his name off the diptychs as one who had died under 
excommunication ; and the popes FeHx and Gelasius 
demanded this as a condition of communion. This, 
however, the patriarchs dared not do, for fear of a 
popular commotion ; and Rome would not give way, 
although Gelasius himself_ confessed that the 
expectation, that the Orientals would prefer com- 
munion with the See of Rome to every other con- 
sideration, had proved' a delusion. 

1 Concilia^ ed. Labbe, iv., 1173. 



214 ANASTASIUS IL 

The separation had lasted ah-eady eleven years, 
when pope Anastasius ascended the papal fhrone. 
He had peace with the Eastern Church more at 
heart than his two predecessors had had. He did, 
therefore, what Gelasius had refused to do, even at 
the request of the patriarch Euphemius; he sent 
two bishops as his legates to Constantinople, still, 
however, contending that the name of Acacius 
must no more be mentioned at the altar. In a 
contemporaneous Roman fragment mention is made 
of the letter which the pope sent at the time to the 
emperor. The reader will thence see on what 
worthless grounds the still continuing schism between 
the East and the West^ rested. At this point 
Photinus arrived in Rome, a man who seems to have 
been active in ecclesiastical negotiations, and who 
probably had received a commission from the 
Orientals to win the pope over to the cause of union. 
Anastasius admitted him to communion, although 
from the Roman point of view he belonged to the 
schismatical party, that is to say, remained in alliance 
with those who honoured the memory of Acacius. 
And the pope showed himself ^ ready to give way in 

1 In Blanchini, Notst Varior. ad Anastas. iii., 209. 

2 The expression'of the biographer in the Pontifical book, " occulte 
" voliiit revocare Acacium," is to bo understood of the re-insertion of 
his name in the diptychs. "Id nonnisi de illius nomine sacris 
" diptychis restituendo Intelligl petest," says Vignoli (^Liber. Pont'f.^ 



ANASTASIUS 11. 



the question of mentioning Acacius name at the 
altar, and thus renounce the haughty bearing which, 
as exempUfied in the conduct of his predecessors, 

1, 171) quite rightly. Cardinal Mai, following in the track of many- 
others (Baronius, Bellarmine", Sommier, &c.), says in his note to 
Bernard Guidonis (Spicil., vi., 98), that the statement in the Pon- 
titical book cannot be true ; Anastasius cannot have cherished the 
intention of securing for the name of Acacius mention in the 
liturgy, because he, lilce his predecessors, in the letter which he sent 
to the emperor immediately after his promotion to the papacy, had 
demanded that this name should be suppressed. But, in matters of 
history, it can scarcely be thought possible to build on such weak 
arguments. Certainly Anastasius did do this in the first few weeks 
of his pontificate, on entering upon the heritage of his predecessors. 
But what can be more natural than that a peace-loving pope, having 
become convinced of the impracticability of his own harcl requisition, 
one which shocked the feelings of millions [nearly the whole East 
remained true to Acacius], should have shown a disposition to 
renounce a demand, with the surrender of which not a single 
essential principle of church discipline was surrendered. If it was 
possible in the case of a man, who for a hundred and thirty years 
after his death, had remained in the enjoyment of church com- 
munion and intercession (Theodore of Mopsuestia), at last to expel 
him, when men became convinced of the fundamental heterodoxy of 
his writings, it surely was possible, in the case of a bishop, who had 
always acknowledged catholic dogma, and had only erred in a 
formal way, and under very extenuating circumstances, to release 
him after his death from the anathema which had been pronounced 
on him, when on this act of clemency depended the well-being and 
peace of the whole Church. 

[The anathema against Acacius was pronounced by Felix in an 
unusually strong form. It was declared to be irreversible by any 
power, even by Felix himself : " Nunquamque anathematis vinculis 
" eruendus." — Epist. Felic. ad Acacium. In a subsequent letter to 
Zeno, Felix maintains this inexorable position : Unde divino judicio 
''nuUatenus potuit, etiam quum id mallemus, absolvi." — Epist. xi. 
Writing to Fravitta, who succeeded Acacius in a brief patriarchate 
of four months, Felix intimates that Acacius is doubtless with Judas 
in hell. But the anathema was almost a hrutiim fulmen in the 
East. Acacius maintained his patriarchate till his death, and the 
other three patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem 
remained in communion with him. — Milman's Latin Christianity^ 
bk. iii., c. i.J 



2l6 



ANASTASIUS IL 



had given such offence to the East. But m Rome, 
where it was considered a duty and point of honour 
not to depart from the path of Felix and Gelasius, 
this excited great displeasure ; and it came to a 
formal separation from Anastasius, for being wiUing 
to sacrifice the righteous cause of the Roman See, the 
authority of his predecessors, and the validity of the 
Chalcedonian decrees for the sake of an insecure 
peace. The premature and unexpected death of the 
pope at this position of affairs was regarded by those 
who had separated from him as a providential deliver- 
ance of the Church from very great danger. 

The later commentators on Dante — Poggiali, 
Lombard!, and Tommaseo — think that Dante, 
misled by Martinus Polonus, has confused pope 
Anastasius with the emperor, his contemporaiy 
and namesake. This, as one sees, is not the case. ^ 
Philalethes also thinks that, as Acacius had already 
been dead some time, the whole story rests on an 
error ; that is to say, he supposes that the author of 
the Pontifical book means one to understand the 
still-living Acacius, because he makes use of the 
expression (explained in the note) to recall " 
[revocare Acacium]. There is, however, no necessity 
for this adoption of a glaring anachronism. It is 

1 Dante's Divine Comedy, Dresden, 1839, i., 69. [by the Eing of 
Saxony.] 



ANASTASIUS IT. 



217 



certainly a disfiguring blot in Dante's sublime 
creation that he has placed an innocent and 
doctrinally blameless pope, whose desire for peace 
would have been accounted as a high merit in 
another age, in hell with the eternally lost heretics. 
But the error, into which the greatest of Christian 
poets thus fell, lay not in the historical fact, but in 
the judgment respecting the fact ; and this erroneous 
judgment Dante shared with his contemporaries, and^ 
with the Middle Ages generally. 

Ifi the Pontifical book it is stated, that Anastasius 
was not able to accomplish his intention with regard 
to Acacius, ^ because death overtook him as a judg- 
ment from heaven. This stcttement is not sufficient 
for the chroniclers of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries. The catastrophe must be more distinctly 

1 Cardinal Mai also, following in the steps of Bellarmine, Baronius, 
and Novaes, maintains that the author of the Liber Pontificalis 
■would lead one to suppose that the pope was struck by lightning, 
and that this was a confusion with the emperor Anastasius, who had 
met with this kind of death. Entirely without foundation. The 
Pontifical book does not say one word about lightning. Nothing 
more than this is conveyed in what it says : that the pope, owing to 
his opportune, and, as it were, divinely-sent death, was prevented 
from carrying out his ruinous intention. And that the emperor of 
like name was killed by a flash of lightning is a late fable, unknown 
to his contemporaries or to the next generation, and at the time 
when the biography of* pope Anastasius was written, was not 
invented. — Conf. Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, vi., 585. 
19 



2l8 



ANASTASIUS IP. 



marked, and the fate which overtook the heretical 
pope must be such as to excite horror and disgust. 
They transferred, therefore, the story of the sudden 
death of Arius to Anastasius. He had gone aside to 
satisfy a call of nature, and was found afterwards with 
his intestines out. So Martinus Polonus, Amalrich 
Augerii, Bernard Guidonis. ^ Dante's commentators 
in the fourteenth century have followed them. Ac- 
cording to them Acacius is the associate (compagno) 
of Photinus, and canon of Thessalonica; but Photinus 
seduced the pope into denying the divinity of Christ. 
A great disputation between the pope and the 
cardinals, bishops, and prelates, who rebuked him for 
his false doctrine, ^ precedes the catastrophe. The 
gloss to the Decretum makes the pope struck with 
leprosy. 

1 The papal biographer, Du Peyrat, on the contrary, contents 
himself with saying, ''Anastasius damnatus est et reprobatus," — 
Notices et extraits, vi. [Anastasius, the Librarian (^Patrol, cxxviii., 
439), says that the pope, in punishment for his error, "nutu divino 
" percussus est." — Eobei-tson, Hist, of the Christian Church, p. 
527.] 

2 So the " false Boccaccio, " or the Chiose sopra Dante, composed 
in 1375, Florence, 1846, p. 87, and the Latin commentary published 
by Nannucci under the name of Petrus AUegherius, Florent., 1845, 
p. 137 ; and then the Ottimo Covimento, p. 199, which confuses Pho- 
tinus with the heterodox bishop of the fourth century. So also 
Francesco da Buti, Commento, i., 301. Where Graul (Dante's Holle, 
p. 116) found the story that Anastasius denied the divine nature of 
Christ. I do not Iniow, 



ANASTASIUS IL 219 

It was Gratlan therefore, mainly, who fixed the 
judgment of the Middle Ages respecting Anastaslus. 
This pope, ^ he says, is rejected by the Church of 
Rome. So says also the anonymous writer of Zv/etl 
in his History of the Popes. " The Church ^ rejects 
him and God smote him." The gloss adds that two 
popes, Gelasius and Hormisdas, excommunicated him. 
The fact that Gelasius was Anastasius' predecessor 
was overlooked, ^ But it was now hereby established, 
as a certain fact, that Anastasius was an heretical 
pope ; and so he was henceforth usually quoted along 
with Liberius as a second instance of papal heresy. 
Since Gratian's time theologians were accustomed to 
appeal to the chapter " Anastasius " in the Deeretinn 
and to the gloss on it, when they discussed the 
question of heretical error in a pope, and of the 
conduct of the Church in such circumstances. The 
schoolman, Alger ^ of Liege (about A.D. 11 50), must 
certainly have had other sources than Gratian before 
him when he asserted that pope Anastasius was 
condemned along with his Decree, because in it he 

1 -'Ideo ab Ecclesia Romaiia repiidiatur." — Disiinc.^ 19, c. 8. 

2 Ap. Fez, Thesaur. Anecd., i., p. 3, 351. 

3 [Felix TL, A.D. 483 Symmachus?, A D. 408 
Gelasius I. « 492 Hormisdas " 514.J 
Anastasius II. " 496, 

4 Liber de Mi&ei icordia et Justiiia, c. 59. In Martene, Thes. Ancd., 
v., 1127. 



220 



ANASTASIUS 11, 



had declared that the baptisms and ordinat'ons 
performed by Acacius after the sentence which had 
passed on him at Rome were vaHd. In this ^ he con- 
tradicted the decisions of his predecessors. Alger 
here agrees in the main with his contemporary 
Gratian. Gratian has quoted the declaration of 
Anastasius, — according to which the efficacy of sacra- 
ments is not dependent on the character of the 
dispenser, and, consequently, even the sacraments 
administered by a bishop who has lapsed into heresy 
are valid, and under proper conditions efficacious, — as 
an instance of a false decision in matters of faith 
given by a pope, respecting which the Roman 
correctors have since contradicted him. ^ 

On the other hand, William of Saint-Amour (about 

2 Alger himself does not mean, as lie afterwards explains, tliat 
tlie sacraments administered by Acacius were forthwith mill and 
void. He distinguishes thus : " Qnort vera, qnamvis non rata pos- 
".sint esse saeramenta cujnslibet mali s^acerdotis, vel hreretici, tel 
"damnati.'' — e. 83 But he fancies that Anastasius erroneously 
declaimed that the sacrfimcnts administered by Acacius were "rata." 
That is to say, he starts from the principle which certain short- 
sighted defenders of papal supremacy had already put forth, that a 
pope who became heretical, immediately, and before even he had in 
any way made knoAvn his heretical opinions, ceased to be pope, and 
hence all that he subsequently did was null and void. In which 
case the Church, which nevertheless, could not possibly do otherwise 
than recognize him all the wiiiie, would Und itself in unavoidable 
error. 

1 DecreU distinc, 19, c. 7, 8. 



ANASTASIUS IT. 



221 



A.D. 1245) confuses Anastasius with Liberius. He 
knows nothing more than that in the time of Hilary, a 
pope lapsed into heresy, of whom it is recorded " nutu 
divino fuit percussus ; " and he conjectures ^ that this 
may have been Anastasius H., mentioned by Gratian. 

Alvaro Pelayo, who, next to Augustine of Ancona, 
furthered the aggrandisement of the papal power, 
with the greatest zeal, beyond all previous bounds, 
and almost beyond all limits whatever, in his great 
work on the condition of the Church, makes mention 
of the judgment ^ which came upon Anastasius, in 
order to prove his dictum, that a heretical pope 
must receive a far heavier sentence than any other. 
Occam,^ also, makes use of the "heretical" Anasta- 
sius as an instance to prove, v/hat was his main point, 
that the Church erred by his recognition. The 
council of Basle in like manner, with a view to 
establishing the necessary supremacy of an oecumen- 
ical council over the pope, did not fail to appeal to the 
fact, that popes who did not obey the Church were 
treated by her as heathens and publicans, as one reads 
of Liberius and Anastasius.^ 

2 Opera, ed. Cordes. ConstAntife (Parisiis), 1632, p. 96. 

3 " Diviuo judicio percussus fuit, nam dum assellaret intcstina 
f^cmisit " — De I lanctu Ecdesise^ 2, 10, Venotiis, 1560, ii., 38. 

4 Opus Nonnginla Dierum.^ Lugd., 1495, f. 124. 
1 In Harduin, viii., 1327. 



222 



ANASTASIUS IT. 



" The pope," says Domenicus dei Domenici, bishop 
of Torcello, somewhat later, in a letter addressed to 
pope Calixtus III. (1455-1458), "the pope by himself 
" alone is not an infallible rule of faith, for some popes 
**have erred in faith, as, for example, Liberius and 
"Anastasius II., and the latter was in consequence 
"punished by God." ^ After him the Belgian John 
le Maire, also, says (about 15 15), Liberius and 
Anastasius are the tw^o popes of ancient times, who, 
subsequent to the Donation of Constantine, obtained 
an infamous reputation in the Church as heretics. ^ 

1 De Ca^dinaliiim Legit. Creat Tmct.^ in M. A. de Dominis, De 
Itepubl, Eccl , Londini, 1617, i., 767 ss. 

2 " In liceresin prolapsus est, et reputatnr pro secundo Papa infami 
"post donationem Constantini." — De Schismatum ei Concil. Differ. 
Argcntor, 1609, p. 594. 




VIII. THE CASE OF HONORIUS. i 



Whilst Anastasius, most undeservedly, was counted 
as a heretic, the memory of Honorius, on the other 
hand, was held in honour ; and the fact that a general 
council had pronounced an anathema on this pope for 
holding heterodox opinions and countenancing heresy, 
was in the Middle Ages usually ignored. The cir- 
cumstances WQTQ as follows : The Monothelite heresy 
was a dangerous and unhappy attempt to reunite the 
Monophysites with the Church by means of a very 
comprehensive concession, devised and introduced 
into the Church, by certain Oriental prelates, who 
herein had probably an understanding with the 
emperor Heraclius, and were acting in accordance 
with his wishes. The point of difference was this ; 
the council of Chalcedon had declared that the two 
natures in Christ are united without any confusion or 
changing of one into the other ; there must, therefore, 
be also a duality of wills, and a human and a divine 
will be distinguished in Christ. The Monophysites, 

1 [On this case see a translation of Bishop von Hefele's essay on 
Honorius, with notes, by H. B. Smith, in the Freslyterian Quarterly 
and Princeton Review^ New York, April, 1872 ] 

223 



224 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 

on their side consistent, made the human will vanish 
in the presence of the divine, allowing to the Logos 
alone in Christ the full exercise of the power of 
volition. The Monothelites, who had formed them- 
selves into a middle party, having for its object the 
reconciliation of the Monophysites with the Church, 
on this point agreed with the latter ; and thus Cyrus, 
in Alexandria, brought about a union between the 
followers of Severus there and the Catholics. Sergius, 
patriarch of Constantinople, who had an understanding 
with Cyrus, sought and obtained the assent of pope 
Honorius against the opposition raised by Sophronius. 
The manner in which the pope and the two patriarchs 
of Constantinople and Alexandria held essentially the 
same view, was this : Honorius had declared, quite 
in the sense of the other two, that the two decisive 
texts, in which the human and created will is most 
clearly distinguished from and opposed to the divine 
will of the Logos, are merely an " economy " in 
Christ's mode of speaking, that is to say, an accommo- 
dation to be taken only in a figurative sense, by means 
of which Christ merely intended to exhort us to 
submit our own wills to the divine will. He was 
compelled therefore, equally with the Orientals, to 
recognize only a single will in Christ, the divine or 
theandric, that is, a will having its source in the Logos, 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 225 

and, as it were, merely flowing throtigh the human 
nature — a will in which merely the Logos is the 
willing power and active principle, while the human 
nature is purely passive ; so that its power of volition 
is either non-existent, or, at any rate, quiescent. And 
this he said in so many words : " We recognise," he 
says, conceding the point to Sergius, but expressing 
himself with more decision than Sergius, "we recognise 
" one will in Christ." And thereupon Honorius, like 
the Monothelites of the East, troubled himself with 
the notion, that a human will, as belonging to man's 
sinful nature, must always strive against the Divine ; 
whereas the idea was not far to seek, that the human 
will, having its root in the sinless nature of Christ, 
conformed to the divine will, so that a moral unity 
co-existed with an actual duality of will. 

On the other hand, Honorius, taking the word 
" energy" (i. e. mode of operation), which had been 
\ised by the Greeks, in a sense altogether different 
from theirs, gave as his decision, that one ought not 
to speak either of one or of two energies ; for that 
Christ, by virtue of His one theandric will, showed 
many modes of operation and activity. Therefore 
there is unity of will, says Honorius, for it is the 
Person that wills, and not the natures, and there is 
multiplicity (not unity, nor duality) of energies or 



226 THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 



modes of operation. In this way, then, Honorius 
would have the controversy put down ; viz., that it 
was preposterous to contest about one or two energies 
in Christ, because neither the one nor the other 
expression could be used in a rational sense. At the 
same time, however, it was set forth that all men 
should be united in the acceptance of a single power 
of volition. The emperor Constantine stated sub- 
sequently in his edict, that Honorius had not only 
taught a false doctrine, but also contradicted himself, 
merely because he, being used to the oriental 
terminology, did not understand the sense in which 
Honorius used the Vv'ord " energy." Honorius meant 
by it, manifestations' of activity in the Person, which 
are many and various. But the emperor understood 
by it, modes of operatio7i in the natures, of which there 
must be two, or (according to the Monothelites) on 
account of the unity of will, only one. 

This doctrine of Honorius, so welcome to Sergius 
and the remaining favourers and supporters of 
Monothelitism, led to the two imperial edicts, the 
Ecthesis and Typiis. It led to them to this extent, 
that Heraclius was thereby justified in concluding 
that the Roman See would not oppose such a 
doctrinal decree as the Ecthesis ; and the Typiis of 
Constans was nothing more than a weaker echo of 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 227 



the Ecthesis. The result, however, was different 
from what had been hoped at Constantinople. The 
whole East rose up in arms against the new doctrine, 
and it forthwith became evident that Honorius, with 
his mode of understanding the question, stood alone 
in Rome and in the West. For some time efforts 
were made to excuse Honorius. Pope John IV. 
(a.d. 640-642) stated in his ^ apology that his 
predecessor had merely rejected the fond notion of 
two mutually opposing wills ; as if, that is to say, 
Christ had a will tainted with sin. No doubt the fear, 
that in admitting the double will one would be irre- 
sistibly driven on to accept two mutually opposing 
wills, was a very considerable element in the 
declaration of Honorius; only it remains a riddle 
how a man, who certainly had no Monophysite 
tendencies, could allow himself to be influenced 
by so unfounded an apprehension. The excuse 
which Maximus, appealing to the statement of the 
papal secretary, brings forward for Honorius is still 
more forced and untenable. Honorius, he says, only 

1 Mansi, x., 683. [Severimis, the immediate successor of Honorius, 
had a brief pontificate of only three months ; and appears to have 
rejected the Ecthesis. John IV. did so in solemn council. 
Heraclius thereupon wrote to the pope to disown the document, 
saying that he had only published it at the urgent request of 
Sergius. — Eobertson, Church History, ii., 45.] 



228 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 



wished to guard against the supposition of two 
human and mutually ^ opposed wills. Manifestly the 
pope had never thought of any such absurdity. 
Rather his decision and the cause of his error may be 
briefly expressed thus : One Wilier, therefore one 
will ; for the will is the attribute of the Person, not of 
the natures. 

Honorius had written again to Sergius to the same 
effect, as well as to Cyrus and Sophronius, and hence 
it was quite natural that he should come to be 
regarded as one of the supporters of Monothelitism. 
The patriarch Pyrrhus, successor of Sergius at Con- 
stantinople, had accordingly appealed to him and, 
at the Lateran synod in the year 649, the writings of 
the Monothelites, which claimed for themselves the 
authority of Honorius, were publicly read. No one 
there spoke a word in defence of Honorius. Complete 
silence was observed respecting him, although the 
five prelates who were accounted the originators and 
main supporters of the false doctrine — Theodore of 
Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, Pyrrhus and 
Paul, patriarchs of Constantinople — were condemned 
by pope Martin and the synod. 

At last came the decisive council of A.D. 680. And 
here took place what preceding events would lead 

1 Mansi, x., 687, 69 i, 739. 
20 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 229 



one to expect. Honorlus, as partaker in the 
Monothelite heresy, was treated in the same way as 
the other prelates who had already been condemned 
at Rome, along with them was placed under 
anathema,, and the council insisted upon cursing 
"the heretic Honorius" by name. He joined himself, 
it is stated in the decree, in all particulars to Sergius; 
he spread the heresy of the one will abroad among 
the people ; he deserved to be placed under the same 
anathema as Sergius, for his dogmatic writings were 
completely opposed to the doctrine of the apostles 
and decisions of councils, tending towards the same 
godlessness as the writings of the most pro- 
nounced ]\Ionothelites. The emperor Constantine 
[IV., Pogonatus] in particular, who had taken a ^ 
very active part at the council, expressed himself to 
this effect in the letter which he wrote to the pope. 
And in the edict which was affixed to the great 
church of the capital, it was said of Honorius that in 
all points he was 2 to be treated like Sergius and 
Theodore, as " the companion and associate of 

1 [There were eighteen sessions, lasting from Nov. Vth, 680, to 
Sept. 16th, 681. The emperor presided in person at the first eleven 
sessions, and at the eighteenth. In his absence the president's cliair 
was left empty. The number of bishops increased gradually to 
nearly two iiundred.] 

2 Mansi, xi. 697-712. [" Qui fuit cum eis in omnibus cohjcrcticus 
** et concurrens et confirmator hseresis." — Harduin, iii , l(>38.j 



230 THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 



" heretics and the sanctioner of heresy." The 
council^ itself, after subjecting the writings of Sergius 
and Honorius to a careful investigation, declared 
respecting the two men, " whose godless doctrine we 
" abominate," that "we deem it necessary to cast their 
" names out of the Church." 

That it was the intention of the council to condemn 
Honorius for actual heresy, and not merely for 
weakness or negligence or imprudence in his mode of 
contending against heresy, there cannot be any doubt. 
And yet it is certain that he 2 was not heretical in the 

1 [" Duas igitur in eo naturales voluntates (cpvciKa de^T^uara), et 
" duas naturales operationes (^vglkolq hepyecag), commnniter atque 
" indivise procedentes prsedicamus ; superfluas autem vocum novi- 
" tates, et harum adinrentores procul ab ecclesiasticis septis abjici- 
"mus, et anathemati merito subjicimiis ; id est, Theodorum Pharani- 
" tanum, Sergium et Paulum, Pyrrhum simul et Petrum, qui Con- 
« stantinopoleos prsesulatum tenuerunt, insuper et Cyrum, qui 

Alexandrinorum sacerdotium gessit, et cum eis Honorium, qui 
"fuit Romae preesul, utpote qui eos in his secutus est." — Labbe, 
Cone I., vi., 1053; Harduin, Concil , in., 1422.] 

2 [See on this point the essay of Bishop of von Hefele, referred 
to above. He shows that Honorius taught heretical doctrine. He 
says, that " Honorius confounded the energy, or mode of working in 
itself, with its single manifestations. 

" His words, bearing on this, read literally : ' It is not right to 
give the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas to opinions which do not 
seem to have been submitted to the examination of Synods, nor to 
have the authority of ecclesiastical canons ; as is the case with those 
who presume to predicate one energy or two energies of Christ, etc' 
(^JUansi, Collect. Concil. T.xi. p. 542.) 

" And afterwards he says : * For we have not learned from the 



THE CASE OE HONORIUS, 



231 



strict sense of the term ; though assuredly it is 
equally clear that Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul 
were neither more heretical than Honorius, nor less 
so. The question at issue was one v/hich had not 
been raised or discussed before, it then for the first 
time occupied men's minds ; a question in which the 
danger of falling into one of two opposite errors — 
Nestorianism or Monophysitism — was very imminent. 
In such cases a certain amount of time and of contro- 
versy is always needed, in order that the con- 
sciousness of the Church may find its bearings and 

Holy Scriptures that Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit have one mode 
of operation, or two, although we have learned that He worked in 
manifold ways.' (^Mansi, ubi suprd.) 

" And at the close : * This, my brother, you will also preach as 
we do . . . and we exhort you, that, avoiding the new mode of 
operation, you proclaim with us one Lord Jesus Christ.' (^Mansi, p. 
543.) 

" Honorius here not only rejects the orthodox technical term of two 
energies^ but at the same time prescribes a heretical phrase as a rule 
of faith when he says : ' On this account we too confess one will 
(sv i'rjWua) of our Lord Jesus Christ, since our nature but not our 
guilt was manifestly assumed by the divinity ; and this nature, too, 
as it was created before sin and not as it was vitiated by the fall. 
That is, the corrupted nature was not assumed by the Saviour, for 
this would be repugnant to the law of the Spirit.' (Mansi, p. 539.) 

" The result is that Honorius (a.) rejected the technical orthodox 
term of two energies (Ji»o evipysia/) ; (6.) and declared the specific 
heretical term, one wi l (ev ftsXrjpia) to be correct ; and (c.) prescribed 
this two-fold error as an article of faith, in this instance to the 
Church of Constantinople." Fresb. Quarterly, April, 1872, p. 284, 
H. R. S.] 



232 THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 

define itself. In the primitive Church the erroneous 
enunciations of individual bishops on questions which 
had not yet been decided and formulated by the 
Church were treated with gentleness and forbearance, 
especially if such men had died in communion and 
peace with the Church. But after the fifth great 
council at Constantinople (a.d. 553) had set the 
example in anathematising Theodore of Mopsuestia, 
— not merely his writings, but himself, — and the 
popes after some opposition had accepted this, and 
at last carried into effect through the whole West, the 
case was altogether altered. In the synod of 649 
(First Lateran), five prelates had been condemned 
in Rome as Monothelites, among them three who 
were already dead. One of these was the patriarch 
of Constantinople, Paul II., Vv^ho had written to pope 
Theodore to say that he followed the doctrine of 
Honorius, and who had thereupon accepted the 
TypiLS of the emperor Constans. The TypiiSy however, 
did not go so far as the letter of Honorius ; for while 
this declared expressly for the doctrine of one will, 
the Typiis merely commanded silence about the 
whole question. It was only natural and human 
that the Orientals assembled at the sixth council 
would not allow the reproach and disgrace oi heresy 
to fall exclusively on the heads of their own 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 233 

patriarchs, but seized the opportunity, not altogether 
unwillingly, of making the patriarch of Old Rome, as 
he was then called, appear for once among the guilty. 
And the papal legates, who had just before made a 
protest respecting a charge of false teaching brought 
against pope Vigilius, could make neither formal nor 
material objection to the perfectly regular course 
taken in the case of Honorius ; they were therefore 
obliged to join in voting for his condemnation. For 
even the inflexible Monothelites at the council, 
Macarlus, patriarch of Aatioch, the monk Stephen, 
and the two bishops of Nicomedia and Klaneus, had 
just before declared that they had promulgated no 
innovation, but merely the doctrine which they had 
learnt from Honorius and the patriarchs. The 
assembled Fathers had no alternative, but either to 
e::cuse all the six deceased originators and favourers 
of Monothelitism, or to condemn them all. The 
Lateran council had rendered the first course im- 
possible ; and the Roman legates would probably 
have protested against a decision which vv^ould have 
compelled the Western Church to make a sentence 
pronounced by itself in a large synod, of no effect. 
Flence the second course was all that remained. 

The reception which the decree would meet with 
in old Rome might well be watched with anxiety in 



234 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 

the new imperial city. A new and hitherto unheard 
of event had taken place. A pope had been con- 
demned as heretical by an oecumenical council, and 
the Romans were required to strike out his name, 
which no one hitherto had thought of aspersing, 
from the intercessions of the Church. Pope Agatho 
had made an attempt to avert the threatening blow. 
Without mentioning his predecessor, he had in his 
letter given utterance to the general assurance, that 
the Roman See had never swerved from the path of 
apostolic tradition, never allowed itself to be tainted 
with heretical innovations. The council answered 
this with the counter-statement, that they had passed 
judgment upon the condemned theologians, Honorius 
included, in accordance with the sentence originally 
pronounced by Agatho. It was, however, precisely 
Honorius who had been passed over by Agatho in 
his letter. 

Agatho meanwhile had died at Rome ; ^ and the 
task of speaking out respecting the condemnation of 
Honorius fell on his successor, Leo H., who had 
translated the acts of the council from the Greek. 
Leo saw that both prudence and justice required him 
to recognise the judgment of the council, that an 
attempt still to draw a distinction between Honorius 

1 [January, 662, while his legates were still at Constantinople.J 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 



and the Oriental bishops had no longer any prospect 
of success. He therefore sent an acknowledgment to 
the emperor, containing an express condemnation of 
Honorius, because, ^ " instead of enlightening the 

Roman Church with apostolic doctrine, he had 
" surrendered its primitive spotlessness to be defiled 

by an impious betrayal of the faith (profana per- 
" fidia)." This was going almost beyond what was 
warranted by historical fact. Honorius, as it hap- 
pened, was the only person in Rome who cherished 
the doctrine laid down in his letter ; nothing is known 
of any other convert which the Monothelite doctrine 
had made in Rome. However, in his letter to the 
Spanish bishops and king Erwig, Leo noticed the 
transgression of his predecessor in less strong ex- 
pressions. According to this, ^ Honorius had merely 
allowed the pure doctrine to be falsified or tainted 
with error. He had merely been wanting in watch- 

1 [" Necnon Honoriiim, qui banc apostolicam ecclesiam non apos- 
" tolicas traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana proditione imma- 
" culatam fidem subvertere conatus est." — Harduin, Goncil., iii., 
1475.] 

2 [" Cum Honorio, qui flammam bjeretici dogmatis non, ut decuit 
*' apostolicam auctoritatem, incipiciitem extinxit, sed ncgligendo 
" confovit." — Epis'cla ad JEpiscopos Ilispanm. " Et una cum cis 
" Honorius Romanus, qui immaculatara apostolicaa traditionis rc- 
" gulam quam a prajdecessoribus suis suscepit, maculari conscuitit." 
. — Epislola ad Ervicjium liegem JlispamXj Ap. Harduin, Concil.^ iii., 
1730, 1735.] 



236 THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 

fulness and foresight. In this, however, he altogether 
contradicted the declaration of Agatho, that all popes 
had done their duty with regard to false doctrine. 

It was natural that the circumstance should be 
looked upon in Rome as a mortifying humiliation in 
their relation to the Byzantines. Nevertheless, after 
the decision of the council, no further attempt was 
made to withdraw the fact from notice, even in the 
West. On the contrary, as if it was desired to give 
it the greatest possible publicity,* it was inserted in 
the confession of faith which every newly-elected 
pope had to sign. Thus it is found in the Liber 
Diltrnus, ^ the official book of formulas of the Roman 
Church at that time, intended for the use of the papal 
curia. The sixth oecumenical council, at which pope 
Agatho presided in the person of his legates, is here 
noticed with explicitness of detail. Then follows, 
after an exposition of the doctrine of two wills, the 
condemnation of those who opposed the doctrine. 
Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, the four patriarchs 
of Constantinople, together with Honorius, vv^ho 
assented to and promoted (fomentum impendit) their 
false doctrine, are anathematised together with 
Theodore and Cyrus. 

All the more astonishing is it that the other official 

1 Ed. Gamerii, Paris, 1680, p. 41. ^ 



THE CASE OF HO NO RI US. 237 

work of the Roman Church at that time, the Pontifical 
book, maintains an unmistakeable silence with anxious 
care respecting ail that concerns the part taken by 
Honorius in the Monothelite controversy and his 
condemnation. And yet in other respects it contains 
good and contemporary accounts of this period. First 
under the popes Theodore and Martin, the ap- 
pearance of Pyrrhus in Rome, the dispute with Paul 
about the Typus, the Lateran council of A.D. 649, and 
the tragical end of pope Martin, are all noticed. The 
biographer of Agatho in this collection evidently had 
the diary before him, which was kept by the papal 
legates sent to the council of A.D. 680. These legates, 
among whom ^ were three bishops, relate that it was 
they themselves who had challenged the Monothelites 
at the council to produce the authority of the 
Apostolic See, to which they appealed. ^ Thereupon 
the delighted Monothelites laid before the council the 
letter of pope Vigilius to Mennas. Investigation, 
however, showed that the passage in point had been 
interpolated. There is not a word about the fact that 
the Monothelites had above all appealed to Honorius, 
that the two letters of Honorius, both in Latin and 

1 [Abnndantins, bishop of Paterneiirn, John, bishop of Portus, 
John, bishop of Rhegium, together with the sub-deacon Constantino, 
the prcsbj^ters Theodore and Gregory, and the deacon John.] 

2 Liber Fonlificalis, i., 279, ed. Vignoli. 



238 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 

Greek, had been laid before the council, examined, 
and rejected as heretical. Either the legates sup- 
pressed all this, because they had received very- 
different instructions from Agatho, which they found 
it impossible to follow at the council, or the compiler 
of this portion of the Pontifical book, in copying their 
diary, has omitted all that relates to Honorius. 
Seeing that the legates produced the acts of the 
council, and the canons which they themselves had 
signed, including the condemnation of Honorius, one 
would rather suppose that the latter alternative was 
the fact ; the more so inasmuch as the compilation, 
or at any rate the last revision of this part of 
the Pontifical book, was probably conducted by 
Anastasius the librarian, who two hundred years 
after the event, in his letter to the Roman deacon 
John, took great pains to try and excuse Plonorius. 
The contents of Honorius' letter he did not venture 
to justify, as later apologists ^ of this pope have done; 
but, he adds, we cannot be certain that the secretary 
did not possibly misunderstand the pope's dictation, 
or arbitrarily alter the words out of malevolence or 
caprice. He bethinks himself, however, that this 

1 [For example, the archbishops of Westminster and Baltimore in 
their recent pastoral letters. The archbishop of Malines also in his 
controversy with Pere Gratry. See Appendix F.J 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 239 

secretary was a very holy man, the abbot John ; and 
now he directs his indignation against the sixth 
council itself, which, contrary to the command of 
scripture, had condemned a man who was voiceless 
and defenceless in his grave ; — quite forgetting that 
the Roman synod of A.D. 649 had done precisely the 
same in the case of five prelates. The dogmatic 
decisions of the council were no doubt binding as 
a rule of faith ; but just as the Roman See had 
rejected the twenty-eighth canon of the council of 
Chalcedon without detriment to the dogmatic 
authority of that assembly, so, he thinks, it is possible 
to reject also the sentence pronounced on Honorius. 
Did Anastasius not know what Leo II. had done, 
what stood written in the pope's confession of faith } 
The only thing in point which he produces is the 
remark, that no doubt the council condemned 
Honorius as a heretic, but that, properly speaking, no 
one could be called a heretic who did not add to his 
error contentious obstinacy (contentiosa pertinacia). 

The silence in the biography of Agatho has 
nevertheless not prevented the biographer of Leo IL, 
in the very same Pontifical book, from citing the 
name of Honorius under the head of those who 
were condemned by the sixth council as Monothelites; 
and as the lessons for St. Leo's day were taken word 



240 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 

for word from this biography, the condemnation of 
Honorius has been transferred to the older versions 
of the Roman breviary, no doubt without the follow- 
ing point being observed. 

In the East it was natural frequently to recur to 
the condemnation of Honorius, without, however, 
exactfy calling attention to it as anything extra- 
ordinary and astonishing. The patriarchs Tarasius of 
Constantinople, and Theodore of Jerusalem, men- 
tioned him at the time of the seventh council ^ 
(a.d. 787) under the head of those who were 
condemned for Monothelitism ; so also the deacon 
Epiphanius. 2 It occurred to no one to make a 
difference between him and the other Monothelite 
leaders v/ho were condemned for heresy. Pope 
Hadrian H. specially remarked in the letter of his 
which appended to the acts of the eighth council, that 
Elonorius v/as accused and condemned on account of 
heresy ; and moreover, that his condemnation had 
taken place only in consequence of the Roman See 
having given its assent. ^ 

It is Hincmar of Rheims who mentions the affair of 
Honorius for the last time in the West, adding the 

1 [Of Niccea, wliich anatliematissd the Iconoclasts, and restored 
imago-worship. J 

2 Concilit^ ed. Labbe, vii., 166, 182, 422 

3 See Garnier's note to the Liber Diurnm^ p. 41. 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 241 

remark, that he must have deserved anathema in his 
Hfe, otherwise those wlio sat in judgment upon him 
would have harmed themselves rather than ^ him. 
After him the recollection of the circumstance 
perished in the western churches. Of course, in the 
notices of the sixth council, as they existed in this or 
that chronicle, and in the Roman breviary, the name 
of Honorius, without further explanation, was still 
read along with the rest who had been condemned 
by this council. But seeing that all these others were 
Orientals, that the Monothelite controversy had left 
no traces behind it in the West, and that none of the 
historical works in general use in the Middle Ages 
contained any particulars of the Monothelite question, 
it no longer occurred to any one that the Honorius 
thus expelled from communion with the Church was 
the pope. Beyond everything else the silence of the 
Pontifical book decided the point in this direction. 
Hence it came to pass that not one of the numerous 
compilers of histories and lists of popes gave even the 
slightest hint of so remarkable a circumstance, one 
quite unique in its kind. The pseudo-Luitprand, 
Abbo, Martinus Polonus, Leo of Orvieto, Bernard 
Guidonis, Gervasius Riccobald of Ferrara, Amalrich 

1 In the treatise De una et non trina Deitate, cf. Chmel Vindiciss 

Concil^ vi., Prague, l*???, p. 137. 
21 



242 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 

Augerii — all these writers of histories of the popes 
are silent. They sometimes relate about him some 
unimportant things, such as small liturgical directions; 
they mention that Leo II., understanding Greek, 
translated the Acts of the sixth council into Latin. 
But an event, which in Rome itself appeared so 
important that it had been expressly included in the 
pope's confession of faith, they one and all leave 
unmentioned, not perhaps of set purpose — only of 
the compiler of the Pontifical book can it be said that 
he purposely suppressed the proceeding — but openly, 
because they knew nothing whatever about it, 
although three oecumenical councils, the sixth, the 
seventh, and the eighth, had pronounced or confirmed 
the sentence of anathema on Honorius. 

And this was universally the case with the Latin 
writers from the tenth to the fifteenth century. True 
that the chronicle of Eccard,i that Ado and Marianus 
Scotus mention Honorius among those who were 
condemned by the sixth council, but this name without 
any further description was, for those times, me/e 
empty sound, conveying no ideas to any one. When, 
therefore. Cardinal Humbert, in his writing against 
the Greek Nicetas,^ inserts a notice of the sixth 

1 InPertz, viii., 155. 

2 In Baron,, Append, ad torn. xi. ; Annal.^^. 1005, ed. Colon. 



THE CASE OF HO NO RI US. 243 

council, and in this mentions Honorius also as one of 
those condemned, we may be certain that he had no 
suspicion of the rank of the person mentioned ; other- 
wise the Byzantines would have been precisely the 
people in whose minds he would have avoided 
awakening such a recollection. The oblivion inlo 
w^hich the fate of Honorius had fallen is specially 
astonishing in the letter of Pope Leo IX. to Michael 
Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, and to Leo ^ 
of Achrida, in which all the scandals and heretical 
errors of their Church and its bishops are set before 
these prelates. The pope confidently contrasts the 

1 Havdain, iii., 9?1. [Michael CsruTarius and Leo, archbishop of 
Achrida and inetr()i>olitan of E-ilgaria, provoked the coirospcudunce 
in 1053, by a letter to the bishop of Trani, iu Apulia, warning 1. m 
against the errors of the Latins. The pope replied from his viriiinl 
captivity at Bencrento. After quoting the text, " Ego autcm rogavi 

pro te, ut non deficiat fides tua ; et tu aliqnando conversus confiima 
<*fratres tuos," the pope proceeds: "Erit ergo quisquam tanta? 

dementiae, qui orationem illius, cujus velle est posse, andcat ia 
" aliquo vacuam putare ? Nonne a sede principis Apostolorum 
"Eomana videlicet ecclesia, tarn per eumJern Petrura quam succcs- 
" sores Ruos, reprobata et convicta, atque expugnata sunt omnium 
" hasreticorum commenta; et fratrura corda in fide Petri, quse 
" hactenus nec defecit, nee usque in finem deficiet confirmata ? 

"Prasterimus nominatim replicare nonaginta et eo amplius hsereses 
" ab Orientis partibus, vel ab ipsis Gracis, diverse tempore ex diverso 
"errore ad corrumpendam virginitatem catholicse ecclesias matris 
"emergentes. Dicendum vidctur ex parte, quantas Coiistantino- 
"politana ecclesia per prsesules suos suscitaverit pestes; quas 
"viriliter expugnavit, protrivit, et suffocavit Humana et Apostolica 
*'sedes."j 



244 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 



steadfast orthodoxy of the bishops of Rome with the 
numerous cases of heresy which had occurred in 
Constantinople, and calls attention to the way in 
which the popes, especially in the MonotheKte con- 
troversies, had continually exercised their judicial 
office over the patriarchs of Constantinople, and had 
condemned them ; evidently not having- the slightest 
suspicion that Michael and Leo, by quoting the con- 
demnation of Honorius, pronounced at Constantinople 
and accepted at Rome, could have demoHshed his 
whole argument. On the contrary, deceived by the 
Roman apocryphal documents, he represents to his 
opponents that Sylvester had decided that the First 
See (that is the Roman) can be judged by none, and 
that Constantlne, together with the whole council of 
Nicsa, had approved this.^ 

Again, Anselm of Lucca would not have main- 
tained with such confidence that at the eight oecumen- 
ical councils which had been held up to that time, it 
had been proved that the patriarch of Rome was the 
only one whose faith had never wavered, if he had 
known that it was precisely at the last three of these 

1 [" Illi nempe facitis prajudiciura, de qua nec vobis, nec cuilibet 
''mortalium licet facere judicium; beatissimo et Apostolico Ponti- 
fice Silvestro divinitus decernente, spiritualique ejus filio Constan- 
" tino religiosissimo Augusto cum univursa synodo Nicasnaapprobante 
*'ac subscribente, ut summa sedes a nemine JudiceturJ'] 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 245 

eiglit synods that ITonorius had been condemned for 
heresy. ^ In hke manner, Rupert of Deutz would not, 
as he has done, have contrasted the steadfast ortho- 
doxy of the popes with the heretical aberrations of 
the patriarchs of Constantinople, if he had not shared 
the general ignorance respecting the sixth council. ^ 

Accordingly, in the West, as often as cases had to 
be quoted in which popes had erred or become 
heretical, people appealed to those of Liberius and 
Anastasius, sometimes also to that of Marcellinus ; 
never to Honorius. This ignorance appears in a very 
astonishing way under Clement V, At that time 
there was on the part of the French a pressing desire 
for a formal anathema on Boniface VIII. The 
defenders of this pope contended that as being a dead 
man who could no longer answer for himself, he was 
exempt from all human judgment, and therefore even 
from that of the Roman See. The instance of 
Honorius would have been very Vv^elcome to the agents 
of the French court ; for by means of it they could 
have proved in the most emphatic way that the Church 
had certainly sat in judgment on a defunct pope, and 
had condemned him. The fact, however, had long 
since vanished from the memories of jurists no less 

1 Contra Guiherium Antipapam^ Bibl. Patrum Lugd.^ xviii,, 609. 

2 De Divinis Offic.^ 2, 22. 



246 THE CASE OF HO NO RI US, 

than of theologians ; and hence in the long controversy 
and legal discussion the name of Honorius was never 
mentioned. 

Hence it has come to pass that Platina has even 
made Honorius a decided opponent of Monothelitism, 
and he represents Heraclius as banishing Pyrrhus and 
Cyrus at the suggestion of Honorius. But that 
towards the close of the sixteenth century the learned 
Panvinio, whom Cianoni then copied in turn, should 
allow this to pass unchallenged, is scarcely con- 
ceivable. 

The fact that Honorius was condemned by the 
sixth general council was first brought back to the 
memory of the Western Church by a Greek living in 
Constantinople, Manuel Kalekas, who in the year 
1390 wrote a work against the Byzantines for being 
separated from the West. The papal nuncio Anton 
Massanus, a Minorite, brought the book from Con- 
stantinople to the papal court in 142 1 ; whereupon 
Martin V. had it translated by the celebrated 
Camaldulensian abbot, Ambrose Traversari. From it 
cardinal Torquemada, ^ who wrote his Stnnma about 
the year 1450, first learnt the condemnation of 
Honorius, v/hich disturbed him greatly; for by no 

1 Queti'f et EoLard, Scrtptores 0. P., I, 118. 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 247 



sort of means would it work into his system. ^ 
Kalekas had made light of the affair in his contro- 
versy with the Greeks. He had contented himself 
with referring to the excuse which Maximus makes 
for Honorius, without troubling himself with the 
consideration that the judgment of an oecumenical 
council must have an authority very different from 
the evasive answer of a theologian, who knew of 
no other way of helping his case than to make the 
secretary answerable for the errors contained in the 
pope's 2 letter. Nov/ Torquemada was acquainted 
with the declaration of Hadrian H. from the Acts of 
the eighth council, to the effect that Honorius had 
been anathematised for heresy. Nevertheless, he 
says that we must suppose that the Orientals were 
misinformed about Honorius, and so had condemned 
him under 3 a mistake. His sole ground for saying 
this is, that pope Agatho, in enumerating the 
Monothelite leaders, has not mentioned Honorius 
among them. 

This attempt to load an cecumenical council with 

1 Summa de Ecclesia, 2, r3, ed. Venet., 1560, f., 228. This is the 
most important work of the Middle Ages on the question of the 
extent of the papal power. 

2 Contra Groecorum errores. Ingolst., 1608, p. 381. 

3 " Creditur quod hoc fecerint Orientales ex mala et falsa sinistra 
*'informatioae de pieeiato Kuiaorio decepti." 



248 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 

the charge of a gross error, merely to rescue the 
honour of one pope, remained, however, on the 
whole, unobserved, and stood alone at that time. 
For then, as through the whole of the Middle Ages, 
the view still prevailed that a pope could certainly 
apostatise from the faith and become heretical, and 
in such a case both could and ought to be deposed. 

Not until after the middle of the sixteenth century 
did any one occupy himself seriously with the question 
of Honorius. The fact of the condemnation was 
irreconcileable with the system then developed by 
Baronius, Bellarmine, and others. Attempts were 
accordingly made to set it aside. It was pretended, 
that is to say, that the Acts of the sixth council had 
been falsified by the Greek? of a later age, and all 
therein that concerned Honorius had been inter- 
polated by them, in order that the disgrace of so 
many Oriental patriarchs being condemned for heresy 
might be lessened by the shame of a pope being 
found in the same predicament. Then it became 
necessary to declare that the letter of Leo II. was 
also interpolated. And on this Baronius, Bellarmine, 
Hosius, Binius, Duval, and the Jesuits Tanner and 
Gretser determined. But when the Liber Dlurnus 
came to light, the nullity of this attempt was dis- 
closed. Another mode of getting out ox the difficulty 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 249 



proved still more untenable ; this was to deny the 
condemnation of Honorius at the sixth council, and 
transfer it to another purely Greek synod (the 
quinisext ^ council of A.D. 692 is apparently the one 
meant), the Acts of which were then inserted in those 
of the sixth council. This was the device resorted 
to by Sylvius Lupus, and the Roman oratorian 
Marchese, who has set forth this idea in a book 
of his own.2 

That the letters of Honorius were forgeries, or that 
they had been interpolated, was somewhat more 
conceivable; at least the supposition demanded no 
such immense and elaborate apparatus of falsification 
as Baronius and Bellarmine pictured to themselves, 
or at any rate to their readers. This mode of escape 
therefore was chosen by Gravina and Coster ; 
Stapleton also and Wiggers were inclined^ towards it. 

1 [Called quinisext, as being supplementary to the fifth and sixth 
councils. It is also known as the Trullan, from the Trulhis or 
vaulted hall, in which it was held. The date of it is doubtful; 
636, 691, 692 have all been suggested. Harduin places it as late 
as 706. The two papal legates signed its 102 canons; but pope 
Sergius I., to the chagrin of the emperor Justinian II., declined to 
do so. The council was recognised by the East Only, where its Acts 
were quoted as those of the sixth council ; and this was the first grave 
step towards the schism between the East and the West.] 

2 Clypeus fortium, sive Vindicise Honor li Papx. Eomie, 1680. 

3 Against endeavours such as these of Bellarmine, Baronius, and 
others after them,— to set aside well-attested historical facts by 



250 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 



Seeing-, however, that the letters of Honorlus were 
laid before the council, examined, and condemned in 
the presence of tJie papal legates, who at any rate must 
have known their contents, it was found necessary to 
abandon this method of getting out of the difficulty 
also. Several, therefore, preferred to maintain that 
Honorius himself had taught what was orthodox, 
and had only been condemned by the council because 
he had shown leniency to heresy from an ill-timed 
love of peace, and had favoured it by rejecting a 
dogmatic expression which had become indispensable. 
So De Marca, Natalis Alexander, Garnier, Du 
Ilamel, Lupus, Tamagnini, Pagi and many others. 

This method of defending Honorius became a 
very favourite one after the outbreak of the Jan- 
senite troubles. It is chiefly owing to the Jansenists 
that the question of Honorius has become a qnoestio 
vexata, in which every effort has been made to 

tlirowing suspicion on the witnesses and documents, because they 
will not square with the system of a particular school or party, — 
cardinal Sfondrati has spoken out very strongly on this very ques- 
tion of Honorius. " Quid hoc aliud est, quam contra torrentem 
" navigare, omnemque historiam ecclesiasticam in dubium vocare ? 
" Sublata vero historia et consequenter traditione usuque Ecclesije, 

qu£e tu arma contra heereticos satis valida habcbis ? Male ergo, ut 
" nobis quidem vidctur, Ecclesia3 illi consulunt, qui ut Hunorii 

causam tueantur, historiam Ecclesiamque exarmant. Ergo si 
*' tostibus agvinda res est, Honorius Papa hcerelicus fait." — Eugenii 
Lombardi Regale Sacerdoiiuni, p. 721, sq. 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 2^1 

confuse and set aside the facts, and with which since 
1650 almost every theologian of note has occupied 
himself. So that within a period of about 130 years 
one may say that more has been written on this one 
question of ecclesiastical history than on any other in 
1500 years. For the Jansenists it was all-important 
to invalidate the judgment which the Church had 
pronounced on the work of Jansen. Accordingly they 
put forth the theory that the Church both could err 
and had erred ; not, indeed, in the setting forth of 
doctrine, but in " dogmatic questions of fact," that is 
to say, in its judgment on a book, or its interpretation 
of a dogmatic text. They set themselves therefore 
on the side of Honprius against the council, and 
readily pursued the course v/hich had already been 
opened by cardinals Torquemada, Baronius, Bellar- 
mine, De Laurea, and Aguirre, ^ maintaining that 

1 For these -writers, foreseeing that the theory of a falsification of 
the Acts would not hold water, had already taken up the other 
alternative, that the council had made a mistake in its judgment on. 
the decretals of Honorius — Bennettis {Privil. Pontif. Vindicioe, 
Eom., 1759, P. ii., T. V., p. 389) admits, " Turrecrematce, Baronio, 
" Bellarmino ac Spondano locutiones excidisse minus accuratas ac 
*' paulo asperiores." They have simply sacrificed the authority of 
an oecumenical council, and of a decision accepted by the Papal See 
itsulf, to the interests of their own theor3^ [So also Pere Gratry: 
" On m'accuse de manquer b, I'EgUse, notre mere, parce que jo 

denonce le pernicieux mcnsonge des dccrctales dans les lemons du 
" Bruviaire romain. Le breviaire est^il doiie I'Eglise, et les legecdes 



252 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 



grievous wrong had been done to Honorius and his 
letters by the judgment of the council. The council, 
in spite of the care which it bestowed, and although* 
the matter in question was at that time current with 
every one, had been mistaken in their decision ! The 
opponents of the Jansenists, who would not allow that 
the Church had condemned a pope as heretical and 
expelled him from communion, preferred rather to do 
violence to the clear words of the council, in order 
to say that Honorius had become subject to the 
anathema of the council, not on account of positive, 
but only of " negative" heresy ; that is to say, 
merely because he had countenanced other heretics 
and favoured their false ^ doctrine. But Fenelon had 
already pointed out that, with all the artifices and 

*'sont-elIes done le breviaire? Mais, quoi! si Ton manque k I'Eglise 
"pour vouloir effacer des erreurs dans les legons du Breviaire 

remain, que dire de ceux qui veulent effacer des decrcts de foi 
" dans les conciles cecumeniques ? . . , Oui, je demande ce qu'il 

faut dire de ceux qui traitent ainsi les decrets des conciles ; qui, 
*' voyant Honorius condamne par trois conciles cecumeniques, sans 
" compter vingt papes, repondent tous simplemsnt que ces con- 

ciles se sont trompes!" — Troisihme letire d Monseigneur VArche- 
veque de Malines. Paris, 1870, i., p. 5.] 

1 It is specially the Jesuit Garnier, who, in his notes to the Liber 
Diurnus, has expended great pains on this point. A whole host of 
theologians have followed him. At last Palma (Proelecf tones Hist. 
Eccles., ii, 127), whose efforts go beyond everything with this con- 
clusion, asserts that the council certainly invoked an anathema on 
Honorius, but in the expression of it was not quite iii earnest. 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 253 

explanations by means of which tlie orthodoxy of 
Ilonorius was to be saved, nothing after all was to be 
gained. For the paramount question must always 
- be this : — Has the Church, represented by a full 
oecumenical council, declared the dogmatic writings 
of a pope to be heretical, and tJms recognised the 
fallibility of popes? If this question must be answered 
in the affirmative, then it matters very little for the 
interests of the Roman See whether the synod, in the 
application of the principle to a particular case (the 
meaning of the letter of Honorius), has made a 
mistake or not. ^ 

Some Italians of the last century — for example, 
bishop Bartoli and the librarian Ughi — once more 
took refuge in the favourite and most convenient 
falsification theory, which makes very short work 
of every stubborn fact. According to Bartoli, ^ the 
letters of Ilonorius are forgeries. At the same time, 
however, Bartoli adopted the discovery which had 
already been made by the Augustinian Desirant, that 
besides this the Greeks had forged also the letters of 
Sergius ; so that the doubly-deceived synod had 
regarded the letter of Honorius also, which agreed 

1 Troisilme instr. pastor, sur le Cas de Conscience. (Eavres^ ed. de 
Versailles, xi., 483. 

2 Apologia pro Honorio I. Rom. Pontif.^ Ausugii, 1750. 

22 



254 THE CASE OF HONORIUS, 



with that of Sergius, as heretical. Ughi ^ admitted 
that the synod openly condemned Honorius for 
heresy ; but thinks that it acted carelessly and 
without thought in so doing, because it allowed itself 
to be deceived by the letter which had been foisted 
upon Honorius. And, not to adopt any half measures, 
he declares that the letters of Leo II. are also 
spurious. The French theologian, Corgne, likewise 
has resorted to this lamentable expedient. ^ 

Arsdekin and Cavalcanti thought of another 
loophole, through which it was possible to escape 
from the unwelcome conclusion, viz., that it was the 
Greeks alone who, at the sixth council, pronounced 
the unjust sentence upon Honorius ; the Latins 
present had not taken part in this mistaken proceeding. 

On the other hand, their contemporary, bishop 
Duplessis d'Argentre, maintained that the council 
had condemned Honorius as a heretic, and with 
justice, for God had allowed him to fall into these 
errors in his letter to Sergius, in order that popes 

1 "Quos omnia," he remarks, after quoting the most decisive 
passages from the acts of the council, "nullo unquam tcmperamento 
*' emollita . . . manifeste demonstrant, fuisse Honorium non solum- 
" modo tanquam desidem, sod — tanquam verum h^ereticum a synodo 
"VI. proscriptiim." — De Ilonoiio I. Fojitif. Max. Liber, Bononise, 
1784, p. 94, cf p 98. 

2 JDissertation critique et theologique sur le Monothelisme, Paris, 
1741, p. 56 sq 



THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 255 

might learn by his example that freedom from error in 
the setting forth of doctrine was assured to them only 
on condition of their taking proper counsel, which he 
had neglected to do. ^ Cardinal Orsi also has fully 
recognised the untenableness of the efforts to save 
the orthodoxy of Honorius, and the openings for 
attack which were thus exposed by shortsighted 
theologians. He withdraws, therefore, back to the 
point of view, that Honorius spoke only as a private 
teacher, neither as pope, nor in the name of the 
Roman Church giving a solemn decision after the 
necessary taking of counsel {ex cathedj'd). Cardinal 
Luzerne has subjected these tenets to a sharp 2 
criticism. One cannot say, he justly remarks, that 
Honorius gave his opinion on the Monothelite 
question not as pope, but only as a private teacher. 
The question was put to him as pope, and he 
answered as pope, in the same tone and style in 
which his predecessors, Celestine and Leo, had 
answered on dogmatic questions. Orsi, however, is 
quite right on his side, when he argues that Honorius 
gave his decision without a council and on his own 

1 Colledio Judiciorum de Novis Errorihus. Paris, 1724, T. I., 
prasf., p. 4. And ia his Varies Dispulationes theol. ad Opera. M. 
Grandin, Paris, 1712, ii., 220. 

2 Sur la Declaration du Clerge. (Euvres^ Paris, 1855, ii., 42, and 
190 sq. [On decisions " ex cathedra^'' see Appendix E.j 



256 THE CASE OF HONORIUS. 

responsibility ; without troubling" himself about the 
doctrine held by the Churches of the West, which 
from the first had always believed in a duality of 
wills ; without even giving the Roman Church itself 
the opportunity of making known its creed as regards 
this question. If the idea of a decision ex cathedrd 
be duly expanded, and only those dogmatic 
announcements be reckoned as ex cathedra which a 
pope issues, not in his own name and for himself, but 
in the name of the Church, with full cojtscioitsness of 
the doctrine prevailii7g in the Churchy and therefore 
after previous inqiury or discussion by a council — 
then, and only then, can one say that judgment 
about Honorius was not given ^ ex cathedra. Neither 
the Roman Church, nor the Western, nor the greater 
part of the Eastern Church, has ever been Mono- 
thelite. Nevertheless, Honorius sent letters to the 
Eastern Church, about the Monothelite meaning of 
which assuredly not a doubt would ever have been 
raised, but for the fact that the author was a pope. 
Accordingly, the old Roman breviary designates him 
simply as a Monothelite. ^ 

1 [With this interpretation one would readily admit that not only 
the pope, but every bishop is infallible, when he speaks ex cathedra.'] 

2 Hefele, in his Concilienr/eschichte, and in the discussion in the 
T hingen Quartalschrifl, 'year. 1857, has treated the question of 
Honorius with philosophic impartiality, accuracy, and thoroughness. 
[See also four letters to Monseigneur Deschamps, archbishop of 
Malines, by A. Gratry, priest of the Oratory. Paris, 1870.J 



IX. POPE GREGORY II. AND THE EMPEROR 
LEO THE ISAURIAN. 



According to later historians, who have been eagerly 
followed by many theologians, Gregory II. deprived 
the iconoclast emperor Leo of the kingdom of Italy, 
and induced the Italians to throw off their allegiance 
to him, because he attempted to carry his edict 
against the use of images into effect in Italy as well 
as in the East. Baronius, Bellarmine, and others 
have made this supposed fact a main support of their 
system with regard to the authority of popes over the 
temporal power. 

Of the biographers of popes in the Middle Ages, 
Martinus Polonus is the only one who, while he makes 
a confusion by transferring the matter to Gregory III., 
asserts that the pope, recognising in the emperor Leo 
an incorrigible iconoclast, induced Rome, Italy, Spain, 
and the " whole of the West " to throw off their alle- 
giance to the emperor, and forbade all payment of taxes 
to him. We have here another proof of the incred- 
ible ignorance of Martinus Polonus, in representing 
Spain — Gothic and even Saracen Spain — as throwing 
off their allegiance. And besides that, what we are 



258 GREGOR V II AND LEO III 

to understand by the " whole of the West," he himself 
would have had some difficulty in showing. The 
other papal biographers, Amalrich, Guidonis, Leo of 
Orvieto, and others, know nothing of the secession of 
Italy from the empire. But before Martinus Polonus, 
Sigebert of Gemblours, Otto of Freysingen, Gottfried 
of Viterbo, Albert of Stade, and the so-called Landulf, 
the late compiler of the Historia Miscella, had already 
accepted the statement that pope Gregory induced 
the Italians to revolt from Leo. All of these, as well 
as the Byzantines Zonaras, ^ Cedrenus, and Glykas, 
received the statement from one and the same single 
source. This source is the chronicler Theophanes, 
who wrote the history of this period eighty years 
after it (he died not earlier than A.D. 819); and his 
work, in the abbreviated Latin translation of Anas- 
tasius Bibliothecarius, was used by the above-men- 
tioned Latin chroniclers either directly or indirectly. 
It is altogether futile, therefore, to pile up names 
of witnesses to this supposed fact (after the manner 
of Bianchi 2), and add to these Nauclerus, and Platina 
also. All these witnesses resolve themselves into 
one ; and the investigator has merely to show (i) that 

1 [Zonaras and Michael Glykas bring their chronicles down to 
the death of the emperor Alexis I., Comnenus, 1118 ; Cedrenus, to 
1057.] 

2 Delia Fotestct e della Polizia della Chiesa. Eom., 1745, i., 382. 



^ GREGOR V II AND LEO 111. 259 



Theophanes ^ is a late authority, very little acquainted 
with Italian affairs ; (2) that the two contemporary 
ItaHan witnesses, Paulus Diaconus, and the anony- 
mous biographer of Gregory in the Pontifical book, 
state just the opposite of what Theophanes says ; and 
(3) that Zonaras, in the twelfth century, and certainly 
Cedrenus (both of whom merely copied Theophanes) 
are here utterly unworthy of consideration. The 
special object of Zonaras, moreover, is to throw the 
blame of the loss of its Italian possessions by the 
Greek empire on the papacy. Accordingly he de- 
corates the erroneous statement of Theophanes with 
the further statement that Gregory made an alliance 
with the Franks, who hereupon got possession of 
Rome, a statement which he thrice repeats. That is, 
he transfers events, which first took place under Pepin 
and Charles the Great, to the time of Gregory II. and 
Charles Martel. 

The truth of the matter is, then, that, according to 
the accounts of the two Italian contemporaries and 

1 [Theophanes was born about a.d. 750. He was a most zealous 
advocate of the use of images at the second council of Nicaea in 787. 
Leo the Armenian made him an object of persecution for his support 
to the cause of image- worship, imprisoned him for two years, and 
finally banished him to i::amothrace, where he died almost imme- 
diately, March, 818. His chronicle is a continuation of that of his 
friend Syncellus, commencing with the accession of Diocletian in 284, 
and going down to 813.] 



26o 



GREGORY II AND LEO IIL 



Gregory's own statements in his letter to Leo, this 
pope, far from wishing or effecting the overthrow of 
the Byzantine dominion in Italy, was rather the only,, 
or at any rate the principal, cause of its maintenance. 
It is true that, when Leo ordered the destruction of 
pictures and dismantling of churches, the Romans and 
inhabitants of Eastern ^ Italy, from Venice to Osimo, 
flung off the Greek yoke, and even wished to elect an 
emperor of their own. But Gregory strained every 
nerve to prevent this, and exhorted them unceasingly 
to maintain their allegiance to the Roman empire of 
the East.2 The biographer in the Pontifical book, 
who, from the fullness, insight, and liveliness exhibited 
in his narrative, is easily seen to be a contemporary 
and eye-witness, gives only one circumstance which 
seems to go beyond the line of loyal obedience 
otherwise observed with great strictness by Gregory, 
and has given Theophanes an opening for his mis- 
representation. The patrician Paul, he says, on 
becoming exarch, made an attempt on the life of the 
pope, because he attempted to hinder ^ the imposition 

1 [The Greek dominions in Italy at this time were • — Cl) the ex- 
archate of Ravenna, (2) the duchy of Eome and Naples, (3) the cities 
on the coast of Liguria, and (4) the provinces in the extreme south 
of Italy ] 

2 Paul Diac , de Gestis Longoh.^ 6, 49 ; Liber Poniif.^ ed. Yignoli, 
ii., 27-36. 

3 " Eg quod censum in provincia possi praspediebat," 1. c, p. 28. 



i 



GREGOR y II AND LEO IIL 261 



of a tax in the province, and would not consent to the 
plundering of the churches — that is, the carrying off of 
pictures and of vessels ornamented with figures of 
saints. Here the point at issue was hindering the 
levying of a new impost, in which the pope did no 
more than set a precedent, which was then followed 
by others, of refusing to pay a new impost out of the 
great and numerous patrimonies of the church. But 
Theophanes and the Greeks ^ after him represent this 
^ as an injunction issued to the Italians not to pay any 
more taxes whatever. 

Hefele, following Bossuet and Muratori, has set the 
events which took place in Italy at that time in their 
true light, and has shown how devoid of foundation 
the Greek statement ^ is. It would have been suffi- 
cient merely to call attention to this, had not 

1 [In this th'^y ar^^ followed, by Gibbon. " The most offectnal and 
"pi asing measure of rebellion was the withholding the tribute of 
*' Italy, and depriving him of a power which he had recently abused 
"by the imposition of a new capitation." In a note he adds, "A 
"census, or capitation, says Anastasius (p. 156): a most cruel tax, 
" unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims the zealous Maitn- 
" bourg (Hist, des Iconoclastes, 1. 1.), and Theophanes (p. 334 [tom, 
" i., p. 3G1, ed L'onn,]) who talks of Pharaoh's numbering the male 
"children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar to the 
" Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historian, it was imposed a 
" few years afterwards in France by his patron Louis XIV." — iJectme 
and Full of Lite Roman Empire^ chap, xlix., note 38. J 

2 Conciliengeschichie, ill., 355 £f. 



262 GREGOR Y II AND LEO IIL 

Gregorovlus lately revived once more the old view of 
Bellarmine, and represented the pope as in open revolt 
against the emperor. " Gregory," he states, " now 
" decided upon open resistance .... he armed him- 
" self, as the Pontifical book says, against the emperor 
" as against a foe .... The act of open rebellion, at 
"the head of which the pope boldly placed himself, 
"was perhaps even definitely declared by refusal of 
*'the tribute from the duchy of Rome,"^ &c. But in 
manifest contradiction to this view, he states further 
on, " Gregory could not withdraw himself from the 
"tradition of the Roman empire, the seat of which 
" was Byzantium ; with prudent moderation he 
" restrained the rebellious Italians, and appealed to the 
" legitimate rights of the emperor, whom he had no 
"longer much need to fear" (page 257). 

Is it conceivable that so prudent a man as (on 
Gregorovius' own showing) this pope was, should first 
have set himself at the head of an open rebelHon, and 
then directly afterwards, without any external com- 
pulsion, should again have quashed the rebellion, and 
come forward as champion of the emperor's rights ? 
For the view that the pope originated and directed 
the revolt of the Italians, Gregorovius has given no 
other evidence than his quotation of the words of the 

1 Geschichte der Stadt Eom., ii., 255. 



GREGOR y II AND LEO III. 263 



Pontllical book, "he armed himself against the 
" emperor as against a foe ; " ^ but the words which 
immediately foil Jw, and v/hich explain the meaning 
of this " arming " he emits, namely, the words, " in 
" that he rejected the emperor's heresy, and sent 
" letters everywhere, bidding Christians to be on their 
"guard against the new form of impiety that had 
" appeared." Gregory, therefore, kept himself rigor- 
ously within the sphere of ecclesiastical matters, 
declared himself the opponent of the imperial decree 
against the use of images, and charged the faithful 
not to destroy their images. But at the same time he 
exhorted them to show civil obedience to the imperial 
power, so much so that he used all his influence to 
preserve Ravenna for the empire, when the Lombards 
were threatening to seize it ; and he placed ^ forces at 

1 [Gibbon quotes the whole passcage, but :?raws the same conclu- 
sion as Gregorovius. "Without depending on prayers and miracles, 
" he boldly armed against the public enemy, and his pastoral letters 
"admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty." To 
which he subjoins in the note : " I shall transcribe the important 
*' passage of the Liber PontijicalisP " Eespiciens ergo pius vir 

profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasj 
"contra hostem se armavit, renuens hsei-esim ejus, scribens ubique 
" se cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igilur 
" permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus contra 
" Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt : dicentes se nunquam in ejiisdeni 
" pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis deicnsione 
" viriliter decertaie " (p. 156), 1 c, note 37.] 

2 [This was partly the result of the interference of the Lombard 



264 



GREG OR Y II AND LEO III. 



the disposal of the imperial governor Eutychius, by- 
means of which Eutychius was able to put dovv'n the 
revolt of Tiberius Petavius in Tuscany. 

A glance at the position of affairs shows that 
Gregory, ^ straitened as were the limits within which 
the difficulties^ of his surroundings allowed him to act, 
nevertheless well understood how to maintain the true 
bearing which prudence and duty alike dictated. 

hm^ himself (see nest note). It is the more remarkable, inasmuch 
as Entj'chius, the last esai-ch of Eavenna, had come on an icono- 
clastic mission from Constantinople ; and it was commonly believed 
of him, as of other imperial emissaries before him, that he meditated 
the assassination of the pope. It was thanks to Gregory that 
Eutychius was not assassinated himself.] 

1 [Gregory was under the influence of two violent and conflicting 
feelings, horror of an iconoclastic emperor (an iconoclast in the 
eyes of an Italian was scarcely a Christian), and horror of a Lom- 
bard supremacy. When Ravenna was taken by the Lombards, he 
organised a league between Venice, the exarch Scholasticus, and 
Eome ; and the forces thus raised recaptured Eavenna while Luit- 
prand was away at Pa via, a.d. 727. Two years later, however, we 
find Liutprand acting the part of mediator between Gregory and the 
exarch Eutychius. As regards the question of iconoclasm, it was 
one fanatic against another. Leo was at least as fanatical in his 
attack on the use of images, as Gregory in his support of it. And 
when it is urged in proof of the pope's rebellion that he excommuni- 
cated the emperor, we must remL'mber that at that time excommuni- 
cation of a prince did not necessarily carry with it a release of his 
subjects from their allegiance ; it did not even cut off the prince 
himself from all spiritual privileges. It merely declared in solemn 
terms that the pope declined to communicate with him. But si 
" quis .... imaginum sacraruni .... destructor .... extiterit* 
"fc>it extorris a corpore D. IST. Jesu Christ! vel totius eci^icbiaa 
« unitate, " is strong language.] 



GREGOR Y II AND LEO III. 265 



The gravest peril, the most pressing and disastrous 
fate in the eyes of the Romans at that time, and 
especially of the popes, was to be swallowed up by 
the Lombards. Gregory shared the general feeling, 
and he, too, speaks of the "gens nefanda Longobar- 
dorum." ^ And this fate, to become the prey of the 
detested foreigner, was inevitable for Rome and the 
rest of Byzantine Italy, as soon as the power of 
Constantinople in the West was broken. That these 
provinces, if left alone, could not maintain themselves 
against the overwhelming power of the Lombards, 
Gregory was well aware. ^ Above all :would protection 
be needed for the Roman See ; and at that time the 
Frankish kingdom alone, under its prince, Charles 
Martel, could have given this protection. Charles 
Martel, however, was fully occupied with perpetual 
wars against the Saxons, Frisians, Saracens, and 
people of Aquitaine ; and, moreover, was on friendly 

1 [Gregory commences his letter to Ursus, doge of Venice, on the 
subject of united resistance against the Lombards, in these words : 
"Quia, peccato faciente, Eavennatum civitas, qu£e caput extat 
"omnium, a nec dicendd gente Longobardorum capta est." — Labbe, 
Concil., vi., 1447. The Lombards, on their side, had a similar stylo 
of abuse. If they wished to express the bitterest contempt for a foe, 
they called him a Roman.] 

2 [Yet, as Dr. Dcillinger remarks in Essay V., " Gregory II. made 
"an attempt to form a confederation of states, which was to maintain 
"itself independently of both Greeks and Lombards, the head of it 
"to be the Roman See," p. 121.] 

23 



266 GREGOR Y II AND LEO III. 

terms with the Lombard king. Thus he was both 
unable and unwilHng to take serious part in ItaHan 
affairs. Hence it came to pass that lower Italy, in 
which the richest possessions of the Roman Chair lay, 
remained then, and for some time longer, faithful to 
the Roman emperor in the East. Not a single 
attempt was made there to revolt from him ; and if 
the influence of the pope had been exerted to bring 
such a result about, it would certainly have failed. 
Had Gregory then, as Gregorovius represents, placed 
himself at the head of a rebellion, he would have 
entered upon a hopeless undertaking, involving the 
most ruinous losses to the Roman See. 




X. SYLVESTER II. 



A POPE, who was held in great honour by his con- 
temporaries, who was renowned as the most learned 
scholar and the most enlightened spirit of his time, 
whose memory remained unsullied for a century after 
his death, becomes gradually an object of suspicion ; 
the calumnies about him assume larger and larger 
dimensions, until the papal biographers of the later 
Middle Ages represent his whole life and pontificate 
as a series of the most monstrous crimes. According 
to them, Sylvester II. entered into a league with the 
devil, and exercised his pontifical office in the devil's 
service and in obedience to his will. 

At first writers were content with the timid 
criticism that Gerbert had devoted himself with far 
too much zeal to profane sciences, and on that 
account stood so high in the favour of an emperor 
with such a thirst for knowledge as Otho III, This 
is the line taken by the chroniclers Hermann of 
Reichenau (died A.D. 1054) and Bernold. Hugo of 
Fleury (A.D. 1 109) as yet knows nothing to the 
discredit of Gerbert ; according to him Gerbert 
attained to such eminence merely by means of his 

267 



268 



SYLVESTER TL 



knowledge. But his contemporary Hugo of Fla- 
vigny, whose chronicle ends with the year 1 102, goes 
so far as to state that it was by certain sinister 
arts (quibusdam prsestigiis) that Gerbert contrived 
to get himself elected archbishop of Ravenna. ^ The 
chronicler does not appear by this to have intended 
the interposition of demoniacal agencies ; in which 
case he would certainly have used stronger language. 
He probably meant court intrigues, by means of 
which the Frenchman won the favour of the empress 
Adelaide, who at that time held Ravenna, and of the 
emperor Otho ; so that the latter, evading an open 
election, simply nominated Gerbert. 

Some years later we have Siegebert of Gemblours 
(died A.D. 1 1 13) stating that some did not reckon 
Gerbert among the popes at all, but put in his place 
a (fictitious) pope Agapetus, because Gerbert had 
been addicted to the practice of the black art, and had 
been 2 struck dead by the devil. 

Siegebert may have had before him the work of 
Cardinal Benno. The main features of the fable 
appear first in the writings of this calumnious enemy 
of Gregory VH. Benno, whose work must have been 
written about the year 1099, asserts that to a certain 
extent, during the whole of the eleventh century, a 

1 Pertz, X., 367. 2 Bouquet, x., 217. 



SYLVESTER IL 269 

school of bkick magic existed in Rome, with a suc- 
cession of adepts in this art, and he enumerates them 
in order. The most important personage among 
them is archbishop Laurentius of Amalfi, who at 
times gave utterance to prophecies, and could also 
interpret ^ the notes of birds. Theophylact (Benedict 
IX.) and the archpriest John Gratian (Gregory VI.) 
learnt the unholy art from Laurentius, and Hildebrand 
from John Gratian. But Laurentius himself was the 
pupil of Gerbert, who was the first to bring the art to 
Rome. And then Benno relates the story which has 
since been so often repeated, and which became so 
popular, that Satan promised his disciple Gerbert 
that he should not die until he had said mass in 
Jerusalem. Gerbert accordingly believed himself to 
be quite safe ; for he thought only of the city of 
Jerusalem, without remembering the Jerusalem church 
in Rome. The message of death came to him as he 
was saying mass in this church, and he thereupon 
caused his tongue and hand to be cut off, by way of 
expiation. 

Benno certainly did not invent this fable ; he found 
it already existing in Rome. Before him there is no 
mention of it anywhere, 2 and it evidently sprang up 

1 Vita et Gesta. Hildebrandi, in Brown, FascicuL, i., 83. 

2 Though Day. Koeler (^Gerbertus — injuriis tarn veterum quam 



2/0 • SYLVESTER IL 

nowhere else but in Rome, just like the fable about 
Pope Joan. A foreigner, with his, at that time, 
unheard of and incomprehensible learning, who had 
acquired very questionable knowledge among those 
enemies of the faith, the Mohammedans in Spain, 
may well have inspired the Romans with something 
of awe and horror. At a time in which scientific 
studies had all but died out in Rome, in which the 
Roman Chair was under the control of aristocratic 
factions, and a pope without powerful relations was 
scarcely able to maintain himself, the populace could 
not understand how a man like Gerbert, of the very 
humblest extraction, by mere pre-eminence of intel- 
lectual culture, should have raised himself to the 
highest dignity in Christendom. That could not 
have come to pass by purely natural means. 

Here also, as in the fable of Pope Joan, a verse 
plays an important part. It is the well-known line — 

" Scandit ab R Gerbertus in R, fit postea Papa vigens R." 

For it is well known that Gerbert was first arch- 
bishop of Rheims, then of Ravenna, and finally 

recentiorem scriptorum — liheraiur. Altorf.. 1720, p. 33) supposes this, 
and Hock {Gerbert undiein Jahrhundert, s. 161) considers it as most 
probable. 

The Benedictines in the Bouquet Collection, s., 244, certainly say 
« Antcsignanos Benno habuit." I have not been able, however, to 
discover these predecessors. 



SYLVESTER IL 271 

became pope of Rome. Originally Gerbert himself 
was said to have composed the verse, in calm 
satisfaction after the attainment of the highest 
dignity. ^ Next the verse was ascribed to him as a 
prophecy respecting his future destiny, which was 
eventually fulfilled. And thus the way was prepared 
for the next step, which was to make the verse into a 
prediction or promise of the devil. Cy this means 
Gerbert was placed in the power of Satan ; and his 
wonderful and, at that time, unexampled success 
must have been the v/ork of the devil, the result of a 
compact entered into with him. For after the story 
of Theophilus, which arose in the East in the ninth 
century, had spread in the West also, and the notion 
of compacts with the arch-enemy (originally quite 
foreign to the Christian world) became naturalised, 
there was nothing to hinder even a pope from being 
represented as having attained to his dignity by such 
a compact. 

And thus it is stated in Ord-ericus Vitalis, who 
wrote his chronicle about the year 1151, that Gerbert 
is said to have studied as a scholar with a demon, 
and this demon gave utterance to the famous verse. 
Soon after, however, in William Godell, who wrote 
some twenty years later, Gerbert has already done 

1 So Helgald, in Bouquet, x., 99. 



272 SYLVESTER II, 

formal homage to Satan, in order to attain the 
fulfilment of his wishes through his power. William 
of Malmesbury tells the story in its fully developed 
form. And now the Dominicans appropriate it ; 
Vincent of Beauvais, Martinus Polonus, Leo of 
Orvieto, Bernard Guidonis ; also Amalrich Augerii. 
Petrarch adheres to them faithfully. In their hands 
Sylvester II. becomes a successor of St. Peter, who 
early in life sold himself to the devil, and by his 
assistance ascends the papal throne. As pope he has 
daily and familiar intercourse w^ith Satan, making 
him his counsellor. But when the entry of a troop of 
demons into the church warns him of the approach 
of his end, he publicly confesses his sins before the 
people, and thereupon has one limb after another 
hacked off, in order to show penitence for his 
enormities by means of such an agonising death. 
Since then the rattling of his bones in the grave 
is wont to give notice of the approaching death of 
a pope. On the other hand, Dietrich von Niem 
(about A.D. 1390) was not far from the truth when he 
said that the Romans had detested this pope on 
account of his extraordinary learning, and therefore 
had accused him of having used magic ^ arts. 

1 Frivilegia et Jura Imperii^ in Schardii Sylloge, p. 832. 



PART II. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT AND THE PRO- 
PHECIES OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 



I. I ntr duction. 

The prophetic spirit of classical antiquity was na- 
tional and patriotic, and hence was restricted to the 
interests of the state and the fortunes of war ; it 
did not aim to unfold the vision of a far-distant fu- 
ture. The Roman Empire did indeed represent a 
great community, combining many nations, — the Orbis 
RomaniLs ; but this Empire was content with the pro- 
phetic announcement that it was destined to endless 
duration ; and, in fact, the imperial era did not pro- 
duce any vaticinations excepting some few about the 
life and death of one or another emperor. With the 
introduction of Christianity there was a change. 
Man's sphere of vision was at once enlarged ; there 
was a general sympathy in the fate of all those na- 
tions which now confessed the same faith and were 
knit together as members of the one great Church. 



2/4 INTRODUCTION. 

From this time onwards the destiny of the great 
nations that took the lead in culture and history, was 
inseparably intertwined with the progress and the for- 
tunes of the universal Church. Every one of these 
nations led, so to say, a double life, the national, 
moving in its peculiar circle of ideas, and a second 
life, by virtue of which each of the leading Christian 
nations fulfilled the mission assigned to it in the 
great Christian commonwealth. And so it was that 
in the middle ages Germans, French and Italians 
had the consciousness that to each one of them some 
special function and gift {charisma) had been as- 
signed ; that each of them upheld one of the three 
great Christian institutions, the Impcrium^ the Sacer- 
dotmm, and the Studiimi, 

Upon a closer view of the prophetic materials found 
in the Christian era, it is at once evident that we must 
distinguish between four kinds or types of prophecies. 
For besides the purely religions predictions, there are 
also the dynastic, then the national, and another kind 
yet, which I will call the cosmo-political. In the last I 
include those that relate to the ■ Christian Church ; be- 
cause, ever since the founding of Christianity, ecclesias- 
tical fortunes and changes have in general been closely 
connected with the great progressive development of 
the world's history. For it is a characteristic of these 



INTRODUCTION, 275 

ecclesiastical prophecies, that they usually relate to ap- 
proaching ruptures, or to the healing of divisions already 
existing, or to divine judgments on account of prevalent 
ecclesiastical corruptions, deeply lamented ; and they 
announce the coming of some great and longed-for 
reformation of the Church, or a reunion of the divi- 
sions in the Christian world. Single monarchies or 
whole nations are designated as the chosen instru- 
ments of these ecclesiastical changes ; or, again, such 
changes are regarded as the causes of social and po- 
litical catastrophes and revolutions ; and, accordingly, 
events are foretold, which belong partly to the poli- 
tical, and partly to the ecclesiastical sphere, some- 
times equally to both. Thus it happens, that those 
prophecies which relate to the condition of the world, 
or to the destiny of the great civilized nations, always 
have a religious side ; and, on the other hand, it is not 
possible to predict momentous and deeply penetra- 
ting events and revolutions in the religious sphere, 
without at the same time holding up to view a corres- 
ponding reshaping of political affairs, related to the 
former as the effect to the cause. 

Accordingly, the vaticinations current in the Chris- 
tian era betray a three-fold origin. Sometimes they 
are, as it were, self-originated products of a certain 
state or tendency of things, shaped without conscious 



276 



INTRODUCTION. 



intention, and without the definite authorship of any- 
one person. But we frequently find such as have the 
appearance of a deliberate intention to subserve some 
special interest In fine, there are also vaticinations 
which originate from the conjectures or genial insight 
of some individual, who, having a correct understand- 
ing of the present, forms conclusions about the pheno- 
mena of the future in accordance with the laws of 
causal connection, and boldly proclaims these as facts. 
The result stamps such instances with the character 
of prophetic announcements. Some examples will 
explain and confirm tliis general view and these dis- 
tinctions. 

As the historian is a prophet looking behind, so the 
prophet is often but a historian gazing backwards, and 
announcing events that have already occurred as 
future. This happens, for instance, when future facts 
are to be corroborated by the past ; as is the case in 
the well-known Lehnin prophecy. ^ This also occurs 

1 [See Gieseler, die Lehninsche Weissagung gegen das Haus Ho- 
henzollern, als ein Gedicht des Abtes von Huysburg Nicolaus von 
Zitzwitz aus dem Jahre 1692 nachgewiesen, erkliirt und in 
Hinsicht auf Veranlassung und Zweck beleuchtet. Erfurt, 1849. It 
is directed against the House of Holienzollern ; but its authorship is 
contested. H. Schmidt (Berlin 1820) ascribes it to Provost Fromm 
of Berlin, who in 1667 went over to the Catholic Church. Giese- 
brecht and G-ieseler, with more probability, assign it to Chr. Heinr, 
Delven. It was first published in 1723 in G. P. Schulz's Gelehrtes 
Preussen, Theil 2. H. B. S.J 



INTRODUCTION, 277 

in those cases where, under the protecting form of 
prophecy, monarchs, or governments, or ecclesiastical 
affairs are denounced, warnings are uttered, and a 
change in the course and destiny of a state is looked 
for. An example of this genus is the poem upon the 
government of Edward III. under the name of John of 
Bridlington (written about 1370), with a gloss in 
prose, in which the author clothes in the costume of 
prophecy what he did not dare to utter in open 
speech, — his denunciation of the infamous abuses and 
prostitutions which abounded. ^ 

This, too, was well understood in ancient as well 
as modern times, that a prophecy can be an effectual 
political agency, and that an event, whose occurrence 
is desired, can be more easily brought about if it be 
foretold. When Queen Christina wished to become 
Queen of Poland, she gave the order that a prophecy 
with reference to it should be adroitly spread abroad 
by a monk. ^ When Cromwell designed to bring 
about certain events, he had them put beforehand into 
the Almanac, whose astrologer thus attained high 
consideration. When William of Orange and his 

1 See Th. Wright, Political Poems and Songs relative to English 
History. Vol. i. London, 1859. 

2 Vous pourriez aussi ecrire au Frere (N. N.) qu'il pnblie adroi- 
tement la prophetie." So it reads in h^r let+er of the year 1669, 
found in Arkenholtz, Menuirea concernant Chrisline, iii, 380. 

24 



278 INTRODUCTION. 

party in England had determined upon the overthrow 
of King James II. there appeared, in March 1688, a 
printed letter of a so-called Quaker, in which it was 
reported that the Spirit had revealed it to an illumin- 
ated member of his Society, that next October a 
great change would come over the kingdom, and that 
the month after William would come over the sea. 
The prophet was at fault only about a couple of 
weeks, everything else came to pass. ^ As far back 
as the thirteenth century such craft was applied with 
good success. When the popes had determined to 
uproot the Hohenstaufen imperial house, and allow 
none of its offspring to attain either the German or 
Sicilian crown, there appeared in the year 1256 a pro- 
phecy in Latin verses, under the name of Cardinal 
Albius, — probably the Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. 
In this, after a general description of a chaotic period 
and of the oppression of the Church, it was an- 
nounced ; " Suddenly and unexpectedly a deliverer, 
a new king, will appear, who for the sake of the 
honor of the mother (the Roman See) will restrain 
the South, crush the Sicilians and Frederick's race, 
and destroy all the works of the emperor Frederick 
and his sons and adherents. Besides this he will also 
make the perverse Romans bow under the yoke of the 

1 Bayle, (Euvres, iii, 249, 



INTRODUCTION. 279 

Pope." In short, he will bring about just what the papal 
court at that time wished and needed. The whole 
sounded like a programme, written with prophetic 
elevation, of the negotiations about the Sicilian throne, 
which Alexander IV. was then secretly carrying on 
with the English prince Edmund ; and it was intended 
to prepare the way for the spoliation. To prevent the 
Italians from expecting, according to the custom, 
largesses of gold from the future king, the prophecy 
did not forget to add, that the deliverer sent from 
heaven, though rich in virtue, was poor in money. ^ 

As an example of dynastic prophecy ^ I may mention 
the prophetic vision which the Thuringian Basina, 
mother of Clovis, showed on the bridal night to her 
spouse Childeric, king of the Franks. At her in- 
stance he went out from the sleeping chamber three 
times during the night. The first time he saw a lion, 
a unicorn and a leopard. The second time he was 
shown bears and wolves. The third time he saw 
dogs and smaller animals biting about. The lion, 
said Basina to him, represents our son Clovis : his sons 
will be strong like the leopard and unicorn, — that is 
Theoderic, Chlodomir, Childebert, and Clotair. From 

1 The prophecy is printed in Lami's additions to the Chronicon 
Pontificmn Leonis Urhevetani, in his Delicix Erudiiorum^ 1737, 
p. 323. 



28o 



INTRODUCTION. 



them others will be born, strong and ravenous as bears 
and wolves, — Charibert and Childeric and the rest to 
Clotair II. At last follow the weak Merovingians 
in the anarchical times preceding the change of dy- 
nasty. This prophecy is found as early as a codex of 
Fredegar, reaching back to the first part of the eighth 
century ; consequently, before the accession of the 
Carlovingians to the throne. The intention of pre- 
paring for this change shines out in the ironical de- 
claration of Basina : " These dog-like kings will be 
" the pillars of this empire 1 " 

A kind of dynastic prophecy, w^hose origin is easily 
detected, was current in England as a popular rhyme, 
passing from mouth to mouth in the time of Queen 
Ehzabeth, and even under James I. : 

" When Hempe is spun, England's done." i 

The word " Hem.pe " means the five monarchs of 
the Tudor dynasty, Henry VIII. Edward VI. Mary 
with her husband Philip, and Elizabeth ; because the 
five letters of this word are the first letters of these 
names. This prophetic saying undoubtedly origin- 
ated in a popular way from the feeling that, as Eliza- 

1 Lord Bacon says in his Essays (Works, Lond. 185G, i, 291), it 
was generally believed that after the death of Elizabeth " England 
should come to utter confusion." A fulfilment of this prophecy Avas 
found in the Civil Wars, which, however, broke out more than forty 
years afterward. 



INTRODUCTION, 



281 



beth had no children, at her death either a war of 
succession would break out, or a stranger, the Scottish 
king, more feared than desired, would ascend the 
throne. 

Among these dynastic prophecies we may also reckon 
the prognostications as to the succession of the 
popes, two of which have attained special celebrity. 
In the earlier part of the fourteenth century there 
was spread abroad, under the name of Joachim, a 
description with allegorical figures, of the popes from 
Nicolas III. to Clement V., which designated each 
one of these popes by a few, short, pithy words, ex- 
pressing in a symbolical way the chief events of his 
reign. Like the other spurious Joachimite writings 
this one, too, proceeded from the bosom of the Fran- 
ciscan order, that section of them called the Spirituals 
or Zealots, who were here veiled under the name of 
the " Dove," given to their order. That a description 
like this, w^hich painted most of the popes of that pe- 
riod in so black colors, charging them with serious 
transgressions, — C destine V. alone is judged more 
mildly — and making them appear to be the despots 
of the Church, could find so great sympathy and at- 
tain such repute, is a remarkable sign of the revolu- 
tion which was then going on in the sentiments of the 
Italians. As early as the beginning of the fourteenth 



282 INTRODUCTION, 

century, in the chronicles of the Bolognese Dominican, 
Pipin, these assumed oracles and emblems are indivi- 
dually mentioned and described ; afterwards less 
skilful hands continued them ; a part still going under 
the name of Joachim, and a part under the fictitious 
name of a bishop, Anselm of Marsica. But while the 
earher ones, from Nicolas III. to Cleijient V., pre-sup- 
posing the stand-point of the author, are appropriate, 
and easily conceivable, the later ones, those actually 
imagined before the event, rapidly degenerate into 
unintelligible phra,ses and commonplaces that mean 
nothing. ^ 

This fiction long ago died out ; but another one of 
later origin still has consideration and is reverenced by 
many persons. It is wholly different from the incisive 
criticism of the Joachimite vaticinations, for it does 
not delineate the moral character of the popes or 
their mode of administering ecclesiastical affairs, but 
it attempts to make each one of them known by one 
or two words, describing some circumstance in his life, 

1 [On Joachim's prophecies, see further, Frederick, in Zeitschrift 
fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, Bde. iii, iv, 1859 ; X. Eousselot, 
Mistoire de VEvangile eternel, etc. Paris, 1861 ; Gieseler, Church His- 
tory (New- York ed.), vol. ii, pp. 433-435 ; Eenan, in the Revue des 
Deux Ifondes, Jnlyj 1866 ] Hagenbach's History of Doctrines (New- 
Yorlt ed.), i, 423, 465 ; ii, 119. For the literature compare JV'otes 
^Mews, London, Sept. 1862, pp. 181-3; and Watts' Bibl. Bri- 
tann. H. B. S.] 



INTRODUCTION, 283 

or alluding to some single event in his career. Mala-" 
cliias, an Irish bishop of the twelfth century,, well 
known by St. Bernard's biography of him, was chosen 
• as the sponsor for these vaticinations, which begin 
with Celestine II. in 1143. As far down as 1590 
(Urban VII.), they are to the point, or admit an inter- 
pretation not altogether forced. The work was com- 
pleted in 1590, to promote the election of Cardinal 
Simoncelli, of Orvieto. He was to be the successor 
of Urban ; and is described by the words, De aiitiqid- 
tate urbis {Orvieto^ Urbs vetiis). The mottoes relating 
to the following popes are for the most part interpreted 
in an insipid and ridiculous manner. But since, from 
time to time, one or another of these prognostications 
seemed to be applicable, they were printed and used 
in numberless editions, and even now do not lack 
behevers. Thus, in the case of Pius VI., the words 
peregrinus apostolicits, and in the case of Pius IX., the 
phrase crux de criLce, bear a convenient sense ; while, 
on the other hand, the aquila rapax^ for Pius VII., 
resists all exegesis. 

One prophecy, which, 2X the time of the Reforma- 
tion, exerted a powerful influence upon men's opinions, 
and so upon the course of events, was indeed ficti- 
tious ; but still it originated in a very natural way and 
without design. Huss was reported to have said at 



284 



INTRODUCTION, 



the stake : " To day you burn a goose " (this is the 
Bohemian meaning of his name), " but from my ashes 
a swan will arise, whom you will not be able to 
burn." 1 Luther, who first refers to this and expressly 
applies it to himself, most certainly did not invent 
the narrative. The occasion of it was a passage in a 
letter of Huss to the citizens of Prague, written at 
Constance : " The goose, a tame animal that cannot 
fly high, has not rent its fetters ; but other birds, 
which soar aloft in upward flight by means of the 
divine word and its life, will bring to naught all their 
malice." ^ And to this is to be added, that his friend 
and disciple, Jerome of Prague, actually challenged 
those that condemned him, to appear after a hundred 
years before the judgment seat of God. ^ 

No less clear an invention is the famous vision and 
prophecy ascribed to Cazotte, about the horrors of the 
French Revolution, which La Harpe has described in 
so dramatic a way, and of which he was the un- 
doubted author. But, on the other hand, it is true that, 
fourteen years before the breaking out of the Revo- 
lution, a famous preacher, Beauregard, declared in the 
pulpit of Notre-Dame : " The temples of God will be 

1 Opera, ed. Altenberg, v, 599 ; riii, 864; ix, 1562. 

2 Hist, et Monumenta Job. Hus et Hieroyni (Niirnberg, 1715) i, 
121. 

S Narratio de Mag. Hieronymo, in the 3ionumenta, ii, 531. 



INTRODUCTION. 285 

plundered and devastated, His festivals abolished, His 
name blasphemed. His service despised. Yes : what 
do I hear ? what do I see ? Instead of hymns in praise 
of God, jovial and profane songs will here be sung ; 
and Venus herself, the goddess of the heathen, will 
have the audacity here to take the place of the living 
God, to sit at the altar, and receive the homage of her 
true worshippers." All this actually occurred some 
years later, and in the very church in which the pro- 
phetic words were uttered. Whoever knows the con- 
dition of Paris at that time, and considers, for example, 
what Walpole said of it in his letters, can very well 
understand how a man like Beauregard, whose vision 
penetrated the depths of the abyss of the reigning 
corruption, might very well prognosticate these things, 
which afterwards came to light as the manifestations 
of a spirit that for a long tim.e had been at work, 
although until then only in a noiseless way. 



II. Prophetic Anticipations in the Early Medicevat 
Times: Antichrist ^ and the End of the World, 



To estimate aright the prime characteristics of the 
religious and political prophecies of the middle ages, 
we must go back to the earlier times of the Church. 
The first christians succeeded to an inheritance trans- 
mitted to them by the Alexandrian Jews with their 
Hellenic culture ; for the latter had already fashioned 
Sibylline prophecies, which held out the prospect of a 
final victory of Judaism over heathenism, and its ele- 
vation into a religion for the v. orld. These Sibylline- 
Jewish books or fragments were current in the last 
century before Christ, and again in the first and sec- 
ond centuries after Christ. To them were soon 
added Christian vaticinations, some of which were held 
in reverence by the heathen and by a part of the 
Christians, who took them under their protection or 
made use of them as genuine, giving to them the name 
of Sibyllists, as, for example, they were called by the 
philosopher Celsus. To the Roman authorities, 
however, it did not seem a matter of indifference to 
spread abroad expectations of an approaching de- 
struction of the Roman Empire and of the abolition of 

286 



PROPHETIC ANTICIPATIONS. 287 

the religion of the state ; and so they forbade, under 
penalty of death, the reading of these books or " leaves." 

As long as the Roman Empire existed in the west, 
down to the period of the great migration of the na- 
tions, there was no real ground for independent pro- 
phecies. The christian representations with respect 
to the future were wholly controlled by their prophetic 
book, the Apocalypse. While the heathen Romans 
thought that their empire was sure of endless dura- 
tion, and the eternity of Rome was, so to speak, an 
official dogma, the Christians, on the other hand, knew 
that Rome, drunken with the blood of christian mar- 
tyrs, must fall, that the Roman secular power would 
come to an end. Hence the vaticinations which they 
framed had reference, first of all, to this expected de- 
struction of the Roman Empire, and were connected 
with the interpretation of the prophetic Apocalypse 
without further details. The Christians of those early 
centuries had no well-defined idea that a new christian 
order of things, a circle cf christian states, would 
spring up from the ruins of the empire. They were 
not in a condition to look beyond the Roman horizon, 
and to anticipate the still slumbering powers of bar- 
baric nations, who appeared to them to be only the 
instruments and forces of devastation. And so they 
cherished the belief that the destruction of the Roman 



288 PROPHETIC ANTICIPA TIONS. 

Empire would also be the end of the present order of 
the world ; or, to speak more exactly, that the begin- 
ning of the end had come. They thought, in fact, 
that Rome itself with its universal power was still 
spared, so that the catastrophe of the end of the world 
might be kept in abeyance. Lactantius says : " She, 
Rome, is the city which still holds and bears all." 
They were all the more confirmed in this represent- 
ation by an incorrect interpretation of the passage in 
Paul's second epistle to the Thessalonians, ii, 7, 
(rendering Karkxw, qui tenet, he that holdeth on), under- 
standing by it the Roman Empire, whose overthrow 
was to be followed by the manifestation of " the Man 
of sin," and soon after by the end of the world. 

And so in the christian world, until the heart of the 
middle ages, there were no proper prophecies of gen- 
eral significance and weight. The prophetic incli- 
nation natural to man rested satisfied with conjectures 
about the great enemy of Christianity, the Antichrist, 
who was expected by^ every one in east and west to 
be a Jew and the restorer of Jewish dominion. Much 
also was said about the approaching end of the world. 
The formula of the tenth century, " appropinquante 
mundi termino," is well known. But this was to be 
preceded by the manifestation of Antichrist, whose 
dominion was to endure three and a half years. With 



PROPHETIC ANTICIPA TIONS, 289 

him men's imaginations were chiefly busy, yet 
still within the bounds traced by the old tradition. 
He was to be of Jewish stock ; in the far east, in 
Mohammedan surroundings, he was to appear as a 
victorious general and a devastator, and fill the world 
with the terror of his name. So long then as no per- 
sonage appeared, who could be described as a 
Jewish prophet and mighty tyrant, nothing could be 
said of an immediate coming of the end of the world. 
The expectation sometimes became so impatient, that 
he was represented as already living, though still 
in secrecy, just delaying his appearance. But farther 
than this they could not go ; and thus the great Anti- 
christ, the apostasy he was to effect, his victory and 
his bloody though short dominion, — all this remained 
a phenomenon constantly expected, constantly feared, 
but never occurring,- though his course was minutely 
described, and his acts and destiny recounted and 
imaged forth. But in every century there were fore- 
runners to prepare the way for the great terror ; that 
is, every party regularly accused its opponents of 
being such preparatory messengers and servants, but 
the lord of these servants showed himself never and 
nowhere. It was indeed from time to time pro- 
claimed : He is already born, or he is now nine or ten 
years old ; as, for example, St. Martin, Bishop of 

25 



290 PROPHETIC ANTICIPA TIONS. 

Tours, about the year 380, gave out that the Anti- 
christ was then Hving, though still a boy. Towards 
the end of the eleventh century, about 1080, Bishop 
Ranieri of Florence was entirely sure that Antichrist 
was born ; and some decennia later Archbishop Nor- 
bert of Magdeburg gave the same assurance to St. 
Bernard. The famous popular preacher, Vincens 
Ferrer, thought that he had the most exact informa- 
tion : the birth of the great foe of Christianity took 
place in 1403. Vincens in 13 12 wrote to Pope Bene- 
dict XIII. that the Antichrist was already nine years 
old, that this had been revealed at the same time to 
many persons, and that there was consequently an 
urgent necessity of proclaiming it to the world, " so 
that the faithful might be prepared for the fearful 
battle immediately impending." ^ 

Baring-Gould, in his Curious Myths of the Middle 
Ages (London, 1869), speaks thus of the literature 
respecting the Antichrist : 

" The literature connected with Antichrist is volu- 

1 In Malvenda, De Antichristo, i, 119. [On Antichrist, see the ar- 
ticle in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, American edition ; Moses 
Stuart, Commentary on the Apocalypse ; Elliott, onApocal. Jowett, 
on " Man of Sin," in his Epistles of St. Paul ; Schneckenburger, in 
Jahrb. f. deutsche Theologie, 1859 ; Maitlaad, Prophecies respecting 
Antichrist, Lond. 1830 ; Knight, Lectures on Antichrist, Lond. 1855. 
J. H. Newman, Patristic Idea of Antichrist, in bis \olume Dis- 
coursc3 and Arguments", London, 1872. H. B. S.] 



PR OP HE TIC A NTICIPA TIONS. 29 1 

niinous. I need only specify some of the most curious 
works which have appeared on the subject. St. 
Hippolytus and Rabanus Maurus have been already 
alluded to. Commodianus wrote " Carmen Apologe- 
ticum adversus Gentes," which has been published by 
Dom Pitra in his " Spicilegium Solesmense," with an 
introduction containing Jewish and Christian tradi- 
tions relating to Antichrist. ^ " De Turpissima Con- 
ceptione, Nativitate, et aliis Prsesagiis Diabolicis 
iliius Turpissimi Hominis Antichristi," is the title of a 
strange little volume, published by Lenoir in A. D. 
1500, containing rude yet characteristic woodcuts 
representing the birth, life and death of the Man of 
Sin, each picture accompanied by French verses in 
explanation. An equally remarkable illustrated work 
on Antichrist, is the famous " Liber de Antichristo," 
a block book of an early date. It is in twenty-seven 
folios, and is excessively rare. Dibdin has reproduced 
three of the plates in his " Bibliotheca Spenseriana," 
and Falckenstein has given full details of the work in 
his " Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst." 

[There is an Easter miracle-play of the twelfth 
century, still extant, the subject of which is the " Life 

1 [The best edition of this recently discovered work of Commo- 
dianus is by H. Konsch, in the ZeiUchriJtf. Hist. Theologie, 1872, s. 
163-303, with a revised text. H. B. S.] 



292 PROP HE TIC ANTICIPA TIONS. 

and Death of Antichrist." More curious still is the 
Farce de I'Antechrist et de trois Femmes," a compo- 
sition of the sixteenth century, when that mysterious 
personage occupied all brains. The farce consists in 
a sccn^ at a fishstall, with three good ladies quarrel- 
ling over some fish. Antichrist steps in — for no 
particular reason that one can see — upsets fish and 
fish-woman, sets them fighting, and skips off the stage. 
The best book on Antichrist, and that most full of 
learning and judgment, is Malvenda's great work in 
two foli o volumes, " De Antichristo, libri Xll." Lyons, 



1647." H. B. S.] 




III. National Prophecies, 



Meanwhile, from early times, prophecies of another 
type were fashioned on the basis of Nationalities. 
In general it may be maintained, that the prophetic 
impulse, so far as it is a natural outgrowth and not 
conditioned by religious prescriptions, is the product 
of widely diffused expectations, cherished by whole 
nations, embodying their desires or fears. When a 
large mass of people long for something which cannot 
at once be brought about by their own powers, or 
which appears to them to be the probable consequence 
of previous events and present circumstances, this na- 
turally clothes itself among the imaginative races in 
the drapery of prophecy. 

The consciousness of guilt also readily takes the 
prophetic form. A nation whose moral standard, and 
consequently whose self-knowledge, has not yet per- 
ished, in case it becomes conscious of deep degeneracy 
and wide-spread moral corruption, is not able to shut 
out the conviction that the punishment for this degra- 
dation must come sooner or later, but inevitably. 
When the anticipation of such a judgment assumes a 
concrete, so to say a plastic, form, as is customary at 

293 



294 NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 



certain stages of culture, it at o*^ce takes the shape of 
prophecy, confidently proclaiming the special mode of 
chastisement, the impending national catastrophes, 
and also even the avenging instruments. What thus 
holds true of nations is also applicable to single orders, 
to corporations and institutions. 

When a people is oppressed by foreign violence, or 
driven from its earlier possessions, the universal long- 
ing to be freed from this yoke takes the form of a 
prognostication. Such prophecies are frequently the 
product, not of an individual, but of many persons ; at 
least they cannot be traced back to any one individual. 
But at the same time a prophecy must not be without 
a name, — unlike a popular song the author of which 
no one asks for. A people may not trouble itself 
about the poet, but it has a deep interest in being able 
to name the prophet. Where this is wanting it is al- 
ways invented, and thus, wholly apart from conscious 
fiction, we find in the history of modern prophecies 
so many mythical personalities or names without an 

owner (^Z'jjtpa Trpoauira^, 

The very first one whom we have here to mention 
is just such a mythical personage. Merlin is really the 
British Orpheus ; his name in the early part of the 
middle ages was celebrated above all others, and he 
wa 3 made the father of very many prophecies which 
went into fulfilment. 



. NATIONAL PROPHECIES, 295 

It is still a contested question whether there was 
ever a historical personage actually bearing this name. 
Nash, in his introduction to the English " Merlin," a 
romance of the middle of the fifteenth century, has 
lately endeavored to shov/, against Villemarque, that 
Merlin or Ambrosius is a pure product of fancy, and 
that that British Merlin, whom the chronicles transfer to 
the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth cen- 
tury, never existed. At any rate, he became later the 
hero of a whole round of legends which grew up in the 
heart of the mediaeval literature ; and here he appears, 
not as a bard, which Stephens^ says he was never 
called, but as a prophet, an enchanter and the son of 
a demon. 

By the constant progress and pressure of the Anglo- 
Saxons, the native Britons or Cymri were pent up, 
from the sixth century, in the western parts of the 
island, where they maintained a certain independence 
in some small states. In the twelfth century it was 
noticed that they were very much absorbed in vatici- 
nations : numerous prophetic declarations were passing 
from mouth to mouth. They were the feebler stock, 
ever imperilled by a strong and superior neighbour ; 
the consciousness of this state of things and the hope 

1 History of Welsh Literature : German translation by San-Marte, 
1864. 



296 NATIONAL PROPHECIES, 

of a favorable change expressed itself in their vaticina- 
tions. Merlin became in fact the personified prophetic 
spirit of the people, and his name was attached to 
every utterance. In the most ancient witness, the 
British historian Nenniusj in the ninth century, he 
already appears in a purely mythical form, — the won- 
drous boy, who was in truth the son of a Roman consul 
whom the mother had never known. In a deep and 
hidden ground he 'discovers the two serpents, the white 
(Saxon) and the red (British), now struggling with 
each other. As the North Britons, in Scotland, also 
had their national prophecies, and as a sponsor was 
needed for these nameless and wandering sayings, a 
second Merlin was invented, the Caledonian, a counter- 
part of the first. Of him it was reported, that becom- 
ing crazed by the sight of two serpents hovering in 
the air, he fled into a forest and there ended his life ; 
and so it came to pass there, as in Wales, that many, 
like the Scottish chronicler Fordun, imagined that 
they saw in passing events the fulfilment of a Merlin 
prophecy. 

After the beginning of the twelfth century. Merlin 
also became celebrated as a prophet in the whole of 
Southern Europe, and his name, like that of " the 
Sibyl," was ready for the prophecies ever springing up. 
Galfried of Monmouth, Bishop of St. Asaph about 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 297 

1 152, helped this on the most by his History of the 
Britons. This work chiefly contributed to spread 
abroad upon the continent the fame of Merlin the 
prophet. Along with Turpin's " Life of Charlemagne," 
Galfried's charmingly told story of the old British 
Kings had the greatest influence upon the legendary 
sphere of the middle ages. To magnify his people, he 
took the narratives of Gildas, Bede, and Nennius, 
woven in with British legends and adorned with further 
traditions, and thus made up an attractive, smoothly 
running history, which long prepossessed the fol- 
lowing generations. His allegation, that he only 
translated a wholly imknown British original work, is 
doubtless a fiction. He created in fact a fascinating 
romance, which in its turn became the direct or indi- 
rect source of innumerable romances and poems ; and 
from this in the subsequent centuries, especially in 
the legend about Arthur and the Round Table, there 
flowed a broad stream of fanciful legends. 

The long prophecy of Merlin, incorporated by Gal- 
fried into his work and also published by itself, deeply 
aroused the fancy, not merely of the Britons, but also 
of other people, especially the French, in the middle 
ages. Galfried appears to have spun out the sayings 
and images of Merlin, preserved by oral tradition, and 
to have arranged them in a chronological order. 



298 NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 

The German Dragon, before which the Red Dragon 
must recede, is to be revenged by a people (the Nor- 
mans) out of Neustria, clad in wood and iron. Somo 
incidents taken from English history in the early part 
of the twelfth century, together with the seizure of 
Ireland, are annexed ; and soon afterwards he predicts 
definitely as to the time of the great national resur- 
rection of the Welsh race. Then is to come the over- 
throw of the foreigners, the Anglo-Saxons and the 
Normans. The streams will run red with blood. 
Armorica will pour out its springs (that is the Britons 
will conquer with the help of their kindred from Bri- 
tany), and they will be crowned with the crown of 
Brut, the first fabulous British King ; the island will 
be named again with the name of Brut (Brittany), 
and England, the name given by the strangers, will 
be used no more. 

Galfried did not invent these things, but gathered 
them from popular tradition. Nothing of all this 
occurred, rather the opposite ; and we can understand 
how Englishmen, like the chronicler William of New- 
bridge (about 1 198), would be impelled to protest 
against these divinationes fallacissimce and their 
fanciful propagators. On the other hand, it is a strik- 
ing fact, that the prophetic fame of Merlin constantly 
held its ground, not only among the Britons, but also 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 299 

among the French and Germans. It was said of King 
Arthur in the prophecy : " His departure will be doubt- 
ful " ; that is, it will be uncertain whether he is dead 
or still alive. But the people believed that he was 
alive and would come back ; and, according to the 
commentator Alanus, in Brittany any one would be 
stoned who maintained that Arthur died like any 
other man. ^ 

Even the English historians favored the universal 
belief in Merlin and his prophecies. How often they 
say : " Tunc impletum est illud Merlini," or : " Ut im- 
pleretur Merlini prophetia." Galfried in important 
respects altered the legend about Merlin, — he makes, 
for example, a demon, James, to be his father ; and 
he cannot be freed from the reproach of thus favoring 
a baleful superstition, which cost thousands of men 
their lives, when Thomas Aquinas shaped it into a 
theological dogma. 

According to the belief of the Britons, Merlin fore- 
told not only the fall of the British Kingdom, the 
invasion of the Saxons and then of the Normans, but 
also the return of the kings Arthur and Cadwallader ; 
he predicted that the Red Dragon would at last con- 
quer the White, that the old British Kingdom would 
be at last built up ; and so, as the monk of Malmes- 

1 Alani ab Insulis Prophetia Anglicana, Frcf. 1603, p. 19, 20. 



300 NATIONAL PROPHECIES, 

bury reports, the credulous Welsh people were con- 
stantly breaking out in insurrections and revolts, until 
at last in the beginning of the fourteenth century 
the English completely and permanently subdued the 
land. And thus the Welsh restlessness and fond- 
ness for insurrection and war were ascribed to the 
Merlin predictions. ^ The need of a prophecy of an 
opposite character, to pour water upon the too fiery 
wine of the Cymrian hopes, was urgently felt. And 
so, under the name of an old Welsh bard, Teliesin, 
who lived in the sixth century, there sprung up this 
prediction : " You will keep your language and your 
songs, but nothing will remain to you of your old 
landed possessions, excepting your rough Welsh 
mountains." 2 To effect a thorough cure of the Welsh 
from their hallucination about Arthur, as still living 
and some time to return, as late as the time of King 
Henry IL, there was a pretended discovery of his 
grave, and the actual corpse of Arthur was declared to 
have been exhumed, after he had lain there for six 

1 " Hos consuevit fallere et ad bella impingere Merlini vatici- 
nium," says the monk Ranulph Higdea, about 1310, in his Polycro- 
nicon, ed. Babington, Lond. 1865, i, 410. 

2 In the Cambro- Briton, London, 1821, ii, 185, the prophecy, 
somewhat modernised, reads thus ; 

'< Still shall the}'- chaunt their Maker's praise, 
Still keep their language and their lays, 
But nought of all their old domain 
Save Wallia's rude and mountain reign." 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES, 301 

hundred years ; he was then said to have died in the 
year 542 on the island Avalon. But the popular 
belief could not for a lons^ time be rooted out. Mean- 
while Merlin's prophetic fame spread over land and 
sea, so that in the thirteenth century, even in Italy, 
a prophecy of Merlin was found to be connected with 
eveiy remarkable and influential event. 

Merlin's reputation was still greater in France, where 
the Celtic sympathy for their oppressed race upon the 
Island, and early hatred of the ^nglo-Saxons, lent 
special weight to the Merlin prophecies about the 
Britons. In Guillaume le Breton's poetical history of 
King Philip Augustus, at the close. King Louis VIII. 
is formally summoned to fulfil the promise of the Bri- 
tish seer, and to tear away the sceptre from the " En- 
glish Boy" (the young King Henry III. of England), 
so that he, Louis, may reign alone in both kingdoms ; 
" and thus", adds the poet, " according to the predic- 
tion of the Briton seer (Merlin), the poison of the 
White Serpent (the Anglo-Saxon) with his whole pro- 
geny will be thoroughly rooted out of our gardens." ^ 

We might naturally expect to find in Ireland a 
prophetic spirit akin to that of Wales ; yet Ireland 
produced no Merlin. Here the predictions are as- 
cribed to the old saints of the land, Patrick, Columba, 

1 In the Recueil des Historiens de France, xvii, 2SC, 
26 



302 NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 



Adamnan. But these predictions have no religious 
character. They relate in part to events, and very- 
insignificant ones, in the endless feuds of individual 
Irish chieftains ; or to the irruption of the Danes in 
the ninth century ; or in fine to the Anglo-Norman 
settlement and gradual ravage of the country. The 
Englishman, Giraldus Cambrensis, called his history 
of the conquest of Ireland, written in the thirteenth 
century, a " Prophetic History" {HistoiHa Vaticinalis); 
for he intended to show that the old prophecies of St. 
Columba and other Irish fathers were fulfilled in the 
irruption and the bloody successes of the English 
adventurers, Strongbow and De Courcy. 

The suspicion that such oracles were then invented 
in the interest of the English invaders is heightened by 
the statement of Giraldus, that DeCourcy himself 
always carried round with him a book of Irish predic- 
tions. ^ And when it was further proclaimed in na- 
tive prophecies that the English would never more be 
expelled from the possession of the eastern part of the 
island, but that in the last times they would rule over 
all Ireland, — the intent of these inventions is certainly 
manifest. A learned Irishman, O'Curry, ^ has lately 

1 In CamMen's Collection: Anglica^ Normannica^ Hibernica. 
Frankfort, 1605, p. 794 sq., 803. 

2 Lectures on the Manuscript Materials qf Irish History. Dublin, 
1861, pp. 382, 434. 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 303 

sifted the mass of prophecies found in Ireland, the 
most of which are only in manuscript, and convinced 
himself that they were partly made after the events, 
and partly invented for the sake of the result. Those 
prophecies which, in Ireland as elsewhere, flatter the 
impoverished posterity of families once rich and noble, 
with the prospect of a revolution and restoration, here 
seem to be preserved rather as family traditions. 
O'Curry testifies that they are still prevalent. ^ He 
says, that " he himself knows hundreds of persons, 
among them highly educated men and women, who 
neglect the usual means of obtaining a position in life, 
in the hope nurtured by these prophecies, that a great 
restoration is to be completed in Ireland, — although 
these predictions do not give a single date." 

The Scots, too, as was to be expected, also have 
their national prophecies, a collection of which was 
published by the Bannatyne Club in 1833. Yet al- 
most all of them have plainly the impress of inven- 
tions following after the events. Some few of them, 
genuine of their kind, originated at the time when 
the Scots were made subject to the English suprem- 
acy, as was especially the case after 1355, and again 
after 15 13. These national predictions comforted the 
subjugated people with the hope that Albania " 

1. LeciureSj p. 431. 



304 NATIONAL PROPHECIES, 

(Scotland) would be again raised up, and, in union 
with the descendants of Brut (the Welsh), would lay- 
prostrate their arrogant English neighbor and make 
the soil of England reek with blood. ^ In later times, 
after the treaties between Scotland and France, these 
prophetic hopes that were never fulfilled became con- 
nected with the powerful aid of the French lilies. 

In the south-western part of Europe, in after times, 
the kingdom of Portugal by its tragic fate became a 
fruitful soil for prophecies. This small country, through 
an able dynasty, the second Burgundian, was, in the 
course of the fifteenth centuiy, elevated to the height 
of worldly power (the first in these modern times), by- 
means of its discoveries and colonies in Asia and 
Africa ; its chief city became the principal market of 
the world. Under its king Immanuel, rightly called 
the Great [1495-1521], the way to the East-Indies by- 
sea was discovered, and Brazil was subdued. After 
the death of John III. [1557], the boy Sebastian as- 
cended the throne, and, misled by the Jesuits, under- 
took a war in Africa with wholly insufficient arma- 
ments, and Portugal lost, in 1578, in the unfortunate 
battle of Alcassar, its king and its army, while short- 
ly afterwards the Burgundian dynasty wholly died 

4. See the Latin prophecy, as given in Wright's Eeliquise Antiquse 
(London, 1846), ii, p 246. 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES, 305 

out in both its male and female lines. The country 
was in consequence conquered, plundered and made 
subject for sixty years to the hated Spanish bondage ; 
and since then, under the national dynasty of Bra- 
ganza, it has never been elevated to its former power 
and prosperity. In this state of things we there find, 
what formerly occurred in Germany after the death of 
the emperor Frederick II., that a deep longing foi 
the vanished king (of whose death in the battle there 
was no sure account) was awakened in the unhappy 
nation. The Portuguese clung tenaciously to the 
comfort and hope that their king was not dead, and 
that at the right moment he would again appear and 
break the Spanish yoke in pieces. One false Se- 
bastian came forward after another, undeterred by the 
fate of his predecessor ; and the belief could not be 
eradicated, that the " hidden Prince " (o prencipe en- 
cubierto), as he was called, was living on a far island ; 
the whole arsenal of predictions, from the time of Joa- 
chim and St. Bridget, was searched through, and soon 
some were found which might be interpreted about 
Portugal and its glorious future, and confirm the delu- 
sion of the Sebastianists. Nor were there wanting 
new oracles fresh from the cloisters ; national prophets 
arose, chief among them the tailor Bandara, whose 
comforting verses the Portuguese knew by heart. Far 



3o6 NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 



beyond the years of human Hfe there was a confident 
expectation of the appearance of a national king ; 
and even the succession of the house of Braganza to 
the throne was not able to dissipate it. Count von 
Schomberg, coming from Portugal, said to king Louis 
XIV., " Half of this nation is looking for king Sebas- 
tian, the other half for the Messiah." ^ Sebastian was 
the Portuguese symbol and pledge of their irrecov- 
erable national greatness and glory ; and the thought 
of their colonies plundered by English and Dutch, of 
their scattered wealth and their lost traffic, kept the 
hope ever alive, that he, by whose disappearance all 
was broken up, would restore all when he came again. ^ 
Even after the middle of the seventeenth century, 
when the house of Braganza wS.s already firmly seated 
upon the Portuguese throne, a man appeared in the 
character of a political and religious prophet, whose 
name stands very high in the literature of his country, 
the Jesuit Vieira, the most famous sacred orator of 
his nation. Like the Joachimites, he only attempted 

1 " Que voulez-vous que je dise h. votre Majeste d'une nation 
dont la moitie attend le roi Sebastien, et I'autre le Messie?" See 
Boutaric, Correspondance Secrete Inedite de Louis XIV. (Paris, 1867), 
1, p. 191. By " the other half" Schomberg meant the numerous 

Jews (in secret), who were then still called Portuguese. 

2 See Miguel d'Antas, Les Faux Don Sebastien ; Etude sur Vllis- 
toire de Portugal (Paris, 1866), pp. 450, 456). It is here stated that 
as late at 1838, there were still Sebastianists in the heart of Brazil 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 307 



to interpret and apply prophecies already at hand, — 
the most of them by Spanish and Portuguese monks, 
including those of Bandara. 

After investigations continued through twenty years, 
he published a key to the prophets and a " History 
of the Future " (chiefly based on Bandara),^ in order 
to proclaim to his expectant and longing countrymen 
(the still numerous Sebastianists) that, God will again 
raise up your king, and elevate his Portugal to be the 
heart and centre of a new universal empire, the fifth, 
according to the prophet Daniel, — since the fourth, 
the Roman-German, is already falling in pieces, and 
will be wholly dissolved at the coming of Sebastian, 
In the time of this fifth empire all Jews and heathen 
will be converted ; and thus the prophecy about one 
shepherd and one fold will be fulfilled." The In- 
quisition of Coimbra investigated this affair, the pope 
confirmed its judgment, and Vieira was obliged to 
recant and was imprisoned for many years. 

It is remarkable that, in the East Roman empire, 
the heathen institutions of the Old Roman state for 

1 Historia do Futuro; besides this, an imprinted MS. entitled; 
Esperanqas de Portugal ; quinto Iniperio do Muudo ; and another 
work, first published in 1S5G : Discorso em que se prova a vinda do 
Senhor Rey D. Sebastian. See D'Antas, p. 453 ; and the Deductio 
Chronolojica ei Analyiica of Seabra Silvius (Lissabon, 1771), vol. ii, 
p. 328. 



308 NATIONAL PROPHECIES, 

determining destiny, sometimes by oracles, some- 
times by the interpretation of signs, were perpetuated 
or sprung up anew. In the imperial library of Con- 
stantinople there has been found, since the eighth or 
ninth century, a book of figures with explanatory 
text, called the Sibylline prophecies. The text is no 
less uncertain and ambiguous than the figures of men 
and animals which it was meant to interpret. Bishop 
Luitprand, in his correspondence as ambassador, men- 
tions a Book of Visions {bpaceic), which does not seem 
to be different from the above. He says that the 
Greeks named it after Daniel, but he would call it 
Sibylline ; that it contained the number of years that 
each emperor should reign and the fortunes of the 
empire under him ; which probably only means that 
these details were reckoned out from certain signs and 
images. 

How this was done may be seen from the applica- 
tion made of it by occasion of the murder of the 
emperor Leo the Armenian, according to the report 
of Zonaras. The pictures showed a lion with the 
Greek letter X on its back ; and a man is piercing the 
lion right through the X. It was now discovered 
that this prefigured the assassination of the emperor 
on Christmas, Christ's day, — whence the letter X. 

There exists an interpretation or paraphrase of these 



\ 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 309 

oracles, ascribed to the emperor Leo the Philosopher ; 
but it sounds like an independent prophecy, promis- 
ing in obscure and rough speech the advent of an 
imperial deliverer, an oriental Frederick, who was to 
save the kingdom and the people. Coming forth 
from the Ishmaelites (the Mohammedans), he is to rule 
over them, adorned with all the virtues, an archangel 
of God in the form of a venerable old man, poor as a 
beggar, yet needing nothing. Two angels in the form 
of eunuchs are to accompany him ; a voice from hea- 
ven will cry out to the nations : " Will you choose 
him ? " and all will receive him with worship. 

There is no hint about the time when this prophecy ^ 
first originated. It is remarkable, however, in repre- 
senting the deliverance as coming from that hereditary 
foe, the Moslem ; — or is there here already the anti- 
cipation of a Moslem ruler, subjecting the empire of 
East Rome } And then, too, poverty is named as 
the chief virtue of this deliverer ; while in Anatolian 
Christendom poverty did not by any means have the 
worth and the religious significancy ascribed to it by 
the Western nations since the thirteenth century. 

Besides, the Germany of the Occident is distin- 
guished by the expectation that its coming emperor, 

1 It is found, together with other writings of Leo, in vol. 
cvii of Migne's Patrologia Grseca, p. 1141. sq. 



310 NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 

* 

the longed-for Frederick, is to be a genuine king's 
son, the offspring of the ruling race, and not an up- 
start. Such an one could only be expected, where 
enduring dynasties and dynastic attachments were 
almost unknown, and the name Porphyrogenitiis (born 
in the purple) was a rare distinction. 

Yet this Byzantine expectation of a Deliverer, 
called from the deepest poverty to the imperial dig- 
nity, of a beggar {Tr-cix^(;) whom God was to raise 
up out of penury (a^o Trewof), for a long time 
kept its ground. We find it in the tenth century in 
Nicephorus, the biographer of Andreas Salo. ^ This 
long-expected One was to lead the Byzantine empire 
into a golden age, to humble the sons of Hagar (the 
Arabs) and burn them up with their children. From 
the twelfth year of his reign all taxes are to cease. 
Illyricum (Bulgaria) and Egypt will again become 
kingdoms, and at last he will also tame the blond- 
haired nations (the Germans and Franks), and bear 
the sceptre for three and thirty years. Thus are the 
wishes of the Greeks transformed into prophecies. 
But the prophecy, in a characteristic way, goes on to 
say, that a period of darkness, and governments loaded 
with crime, will follow right after this brilliant domin- 
ion. There is to be a sudden transition from a time 

1 Acta Sanctorum, maji. vi, Append, p. 96. 



-NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 311 



of shining virtue and moral purity to an era in which 
all manner of shameless crimes will abound, — a revo- 
lution, the only cause of which (in correspondence 
with the Byzantine absolutism) is to be the personal- 
ity, the will and the example of the monarch. In 
the principal city of the empire they already believed, 
as a prophetic certainty, that Constantinople, the city 
dedicated to the Virgin, and by her shielded, would 
never be sacked by foes. It will, they say, be belea- 
guered, but the enemy will raise the siege in disgrace. ^ 
This delusion was indeed destroyed by the Latin con- 
quest in the year 1204. There is also a later Sibyl- 
line prediction, ^ probably devised before the year 
1453. Here it is said that the crimes of Byzantium, 
the blood there shed, and its sins against nature will 
rise up before God ; the enemy will hurl himself 
against the city, annihilate its splendor and glory, 
desecrate its sanctuaries and women, give up its buil- 
dings to the flames, and make its woes resound 
abroad. Then, in obscure words, there is an intima- 
tion of a future revolution. 

In the last times of the dying empire, such prophe- 
cies produced very injurious effects ; they confused 

1 This was announced by Andreas Salo, ubi supra, 96. 

2 To be found in Wolf's collection, Lecliones Memorabiles (Lau- 
ingen, 1600), vol. i, p. 71. 



312 NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 

and disheartened the people. In a cloister of Con- 
stantinople there was found a tablet, which, like the 
other Byzantine predictions, was ascribed to the em- 
peror Leo the Philosopher (886-911). This showed 
in two columns the succession of the emperors and 
the patriarchs ; every name had its own compart- 
ment, and it was found that there was only a single 
empty one left, so that the present emperor Constan- 
tine was to be the last. On the other hand there was 
another prophecy, intended to inspire the Byzantines 
with confidence, which likewise had pernicious effects. 
It ran thus : When the Turks have forced their way 
into the city as far as the column of Justinian, then 
an angel will suddenly appear and annihilate all of 
them. The actual result of their firm belief in this 
miraculous deliverance was, that the people abandoned 
all part in the defence, leaving it to the garrison alone, 
which was altogether too weak. ^ A remarkable ex- 
ample of the influence of these Byzantine prophecies 
even upon highly cultivated and acute minds, is found 
in the zealous Aristotelian, Georgius of Trapezium; one 
of the most learned of the Greeks, driven into Italy 
by the Turkish conquests. The old vaticination about 
an emperor and universal monarch, to be raised up 

1 Laonicus Chalcondylus, 8, 215, p. 406, ed. Bonn. Leonard. Chiens. 
ap. Bzovium, Annal. Eccles, anu. 1453. 



NATIONAL PROPHECIES. 313 



among the Ishmaelites, led him in the year 1469 at 
Rome, where he was a public teacher, to the convic- 
tion that the present Sultan, Mohammed IL, the con- 
queror of Constantinople, was this very Ishmaelite, — 
who would soon be converted to the Christian faith, 
and, as the emperor Immanuel and sole monarch of 
the world, would call all nations to the true faith ; and 
this conversion of the world was to take place of itself, 
without any special effort on the part of Christians. 
In Rome this harmless hope was imputed to him as 
a mischievous transgression ; for it was thought that 
he must also mean that his " righteous emperor," in 
accordance with the wide spread occidental expecta- 
tions about the coming emperor, would set on foot a 
general slaughter of the clergy. But Georgius did not 
at all mean this ; the Byzantine prophecies knew 
nothing about such a bloody destruction of the clergy ; 
for in the Eastern Church the relation of the clergy to 
the laity was not so perverted and inimical as it then 
was in the West. The unhappy man was seized by 
the Roman authorities, despoiled of his property and 
put in prison, until at last king Alphonso of Naples 
took his part and supported him until his death in 
1483. 1 

1 See about him, Aretin's BeUrdge zur Geschichte und Literature 
ix, 837. 

ay 



IV. The Prophecy about Rome, 



One city has furnished ampler materials than many 
a great empire to inspire the spirit of prophecy. The 
city of Rome for two thousand years has stood alone 
and unapproached, as one of the great factors in the 
world's history ; and, though it has been the grave 
of nations, yet it still draws men to it by a magnetic 
power, — an enticing object which every one longs 
to see once in his life. In the most extraordinary 
manner, the views held about the duration of this city, 
and the high protection it enjoyed, have in the course 
of time been totally transformed. Under heathen 
rule Rome was believed to be eternal, and the name 
" Eternal City," ruler of the world, was applied to it 
as a matter of course in poetry, history, and even in 
public life. 

Under the christian emperors also, until the end 
of the fifth centuiy, Rome retained its name "Eternal 
City," at least among heathen writers. Ammianus 
Marcellinus said : " It shall live as long as there are 
men." ^ This name was offensive to the Christians ; 
for they thought that the " name of blasphemy " (Rev. 

1 Rerum Gestarum, 1. 16, c, 10, 14. 

314 



THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME. 315 

xvli, 3), written upon the forehead of the great whore, 
clothed in purple, contained an allusion to this predi- 
cate of eternity. ^ This proud name died out with 
the dissolution of heathendom, and the fall of the 
Roman Empire of the West (about 476), although 
other names remained, as, for example, Ausonius 
greets Rome as " the house of the gods, the mistress 
or head of the world." Even after the fall of the 
empire, after the devastation by Alaric the Goth and 
the sacking under Genseric, Rome still remained in 
the eyes of men the first of cities, the head of the 
world, apart too from its ecclesiastical relations. 
When Totila, the Gothic king, boasted that he would 
raze Rome to the ground, Belisarius (547) warned him 
in reply, that if he outraged this city, chief of all the 
cities, he would commit high treason against the 
whole human race. ^ 

In the eighth century there are still found echoes 
here and there of the ancient opinion that Rome is 
the ruler of the world, but these are already mixed up 
with the later ecclesiastical views ; as when the abbess 
Cengitha in 733 expressed to Boniface her desire to 
visit the former mistress of the world, and there re- 

1 See Hieronymi Opera^ ed. Villarsi, i, 852 ; and the author of tho 
work De Promi&s. et Prsedictionibus Dei, in the collection of Pios- 
per's works (Paris, 1711), Appendix, p. 194. 

2 Procopius, Bell. Gothic, c. 23, p. 548. 



3i6 THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME. 

ceive forgiveness of sin. ^ But the existence of the 
Roman Empire was no longer bound up, as in the 
earlier representations, with the continuance of Rome. 
Before the revival of the western Roman Empire by 
Charlemagne (800), the Roman Empire was continued 
by name in the east ; for the Byzantine Greeks always 
called themselves Romans, and claimed that they 
were the only genuine and legal heirs and successors 
of old Rome. And since 800 Rome has never been 
the chief city of the empire in the west, never the 
seat of the emperors. In the thousand years, from 
500 to 1500, as in earlier times, the end of the Roman 
Empire was thought to be necessarily connected with 
the end of the world ; but yet during this period it 
was no longer imagined that the city of Rome would 
likewise endure until the end jof time. On the con- 
traiy, by a closer study of the Revelation of John, the 
result was gradually reached, that the prophecy in the 
eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, about the judi- 
cial destruction of Rome, was not yet fulfilled, but was 
still to come, and this, too, long before the close of 
the present aeon. According to the Revelation of 
John, the judgment upon the City of the Seven Hills 
is to come suddenly, in a day, with death, mourning, 
hunger and burning, and the city is to be wholly 

1 Bonifacii Oj^era^ ed. Giles, i, 76. 



THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME, 317 

consumed. These predictions did not come to pass in 
the storms of the Gothic wars, for then there was 
only a gradual and partial destruction of the city. 

St. Benedict of Nursia, about 542, had predicted 
that Rome was not to be destroyed by foreign nations, 
but to be visited by natural events, storms, whirl- 
winds and earthquakes, and to die out in and of 
itself 1 Since then more than thirteen hundred years 
have passed, and none of these physical devastations 
have occurred. The plain meaning of this prophecy of 
the Apocalypse afterwards forced interpreters to as- 
sume that there was still to be a future destruction of 
Rome by fire. The time for this was conceived as 
being near or remote, according as the interpreters 
had in mind, either the mere moral condition of its 
inhabitants, or as they connected this overthrow of 
the city with the corruptions of the Church and the 
degeneracy and guilt of the papacy. In the latter 
case they viewed the judgments upon this seat and 
centre of the government of the Church as merely a 
part of the whole, a single stage in the great process 
of the purification of the Church. 

Thus it was with the Spirituales {zelotes) of the 
Minorite order, who interpreted the Babylon of the 
Apocalypse of the Roman Church, then at Avignon, 

1 M. Gregorii Dialogic 2, 15, ed. Benedict, ii, 240, 



3i8 THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME, 

which had become corrupt and sensuous ; and v\'ho 
also looked for the destruction of Rome by fire. 
Saint Brigitta, who lived many years at Rome, pro- 
phesied, in accordance with a vision imparted to her, 
that first the sword, then fire, would come upon Rome, 
after which her soil was to be overturned by the plow. ^ 
Saint Francisca Romana (in 1439) believed that the 
destruction of the city had been determined by divine 
decree, but supposed that the calamity had been sub- 
sequently averted through her intercession. Later, 
however, she had another vision, in which the fall of 
Rome was shown to her to be imminent. ^ j 
In a moral poem, by an English monk, Richard 
RoUe de Hampole, ^ a general separation from the 
Roman Church, which no one was henceforth to obey, 
was associated with the expected destruction of Rome. 
About the same time it was believed that the Ro- 
man Church would some time perpetrate so mon- 
strous a crime, that many churches would separate 
from her, and then, in accordance with the prediction 
of Saint Paul (2 Thess. ii, 13), the Man of Sin would 
be revealed. ^ In Germany, the catastrophe v/hich 

1 Revelationes^ ed. Antwerp. (1611) p. 257. 

2 Acta S tnctorum Bolland. Martii ii, 147. 

3 The Pricke of C 'nscience : it was written in the fourteenth cen- 
tury in the Northumbrian dialect, and was published a few years 
since in London. See the passage p. 111. 

4 Anselmi Opera (Cologne, 1612). 2 Epist. Thessal. i, 2, ii, 42. 



THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME, 319 

threatened Rome was transformed, so as to represent 
that a German or Roman emperor should be the 
executor of the judgment upon the guilty city. An 
emperor was first to destroy Rome, then Florence, the 
old metropolis of the Guelphs, so hostile to the Ger- 
mans and their rulers. Such was the myth and the 
expectation in the fifteenth and even into the six- 
teenth century. « . ' 

I In the year 15 19, when Charles V. was elected, a 
prophecy was brought from Venice to England, ^ to 
the effect that the new emperor would subjugate all 
states and peoples, would force the Mohammedans to 
accept Christianity, after having destroyed Rome and 
Florence by fire, and would at last visit Jerusalem, 
lay down his crown upon the Mount of Olives, and die. 
Now Charles V. burned neither Rome nor Florence, 
but, to please Pope Clement, he besieged the latter 
city and conquered it ; and how his mercenaries in 
the year 1527 captured and plundered Rome is 
known the world over. . 

^ But now, Berthold, Bishop of Chiemsee, in his work 
The Burden of the Church," 2 composed in the year 
15 19, reproduces this identical prediction with the 

1 Sanuto has incorporated it into his great Diary. See Rawdon 
Brown's Calendar of State Papers in Venice, 1509-19, p. 566. 

2 Onus JScclesix, 48, 8, ed. 1531. 



320 THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME, 

remark, that it was said to have appeared in the year 
1505, in Italy, but had not fallen into his hands until 
the year 15 19. When Berth old wrote, Charles had not 
yet been chosen emperor. So thoroughly had the way 
been prepared in Germany, that when the message of 
May 6, 1527, was received, the only emperor who had 
possessed any real authority for over a hundred and 
eighty years, seemed to be seriously thinking of put- 
ting the prophecy into execution. It can be distinct- 
ly seen in the literature of the times, tiiat so extraor- 
dinary and unheard of an event, — for such a fate as this 
had never befallen another great city — made but a 
slight impression on this side of the Alps. A much 
severer calamity had been expected. 

But even in Rome this fatality was not quite unex- 
pected. Bartolomeo Brandano, hermit of Siena, ap- 
peared in the streets of Rome, not long before May, 
15 17, crying: "Woe to the city devoted to destruc- 
tion, which must fall a prey to the transalpine nations, 
on account of the grave sins of the pope and pre- 
lates." The pope had him arrested and imprisoned, 
and then drove him from the city with the threat that 
he should be thrown into the Tiber if he came back 
again. However, Brandano came back and pro- 
claimed that the vengeance of God would now visit 
the clergy and the city. Clement VII., true to Lis word, 



THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME. 321 



had him thrown from the Ponte St. Angelo into the 
stream, but Brandano saved himself. Again impri- 
soned, he was released by the imperial army, and 
this fulfilled his prediction. He seems to have 
followed closely on the heels of Pope Clement, for as 
the latter journeyed towards Orvieto, Brandano again 
appeared, and pronounced him a false pope (on ac- 
count of his illegitimate birth), and declared his official 
acts and indulgences invalid. ^ 

Rome in a few years had recovered from the fearful 
stroke of the year 1527, and soon, in spite of the great 
rupture, became richer than she had been before. 
Meantime the belief that in future times she was des- 
tined to an utter desolation by fire had become pre- 
valent. Rome is now spoken of as the Babylon of 
the Apocalypse, the harlot, who says in her heart, 
" I sit as queen ; " and the word of the Scriptures, 
yet unfulfilled, awaits its accomplishment. As early 
as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we find the 
statement, that with the fall of the Roman empire would 
be conjoined a release of the nations from the papal 

1 Guicciardini, Storia del Saceo di Roma, in Bernini, Sloria delle 
Uresie, iv. — Eaynald, Annales. a. 1527, p. 648. All the historians of 
the Augustine Order, to which Brandano belonged, speak of him. 
The most exact accounts are in Bardi's Storia di Siena, and Pecci's 
Kotizie Storico-tritiche sulla Vita di B irt. da Petrojo chiamato Bran- 
dano, Lucca, 1*763, p. 20. Among the people he then had the re- 
pute of sanctity, and his prophetic mission was believed in. 



322 THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME, 



chair ; ^ and not this only, but the inhabitants of 
Rome itself were to rise up against the papacy, which 
would be forced to take its seat elsewhere, and then 
the judgment would be fulfilled upon the city which 
was equally apostate with the empire. Precisely those 
theologians who were the most unconditionally de- 
voted to the temporal authority of the papacy defended 
this view. Rome, they said, has been an adulteress of 
old ; in the conflicts between the popes and the em- 
perors, the Romans have always shown themselves 
rather imperialists than papists. ^ All these sins of 
Rome will, by and bye, be requited in that devastating 
conflagration. * The entire order of the Jesuits was for 
a time in favor of this explanation of the i8th chap- 
ter of the Revelation, — Ribera, Viegas, Lessius, Bellar- 
mine, ^ Suarez, Henriquez, Cornelius van de Steen (a 
Lapide), ar ^ others. 

From this, it was necessarily inferred that, before the 

1 So, for example, abbot Engelbert, D" OrtUj Progressu et Fine 
Rom. Imperii, in the Bibl. Max. Pairum, vol. xxiv. 

2 This was certainly, as early as the 13th century, manifested in a 
variety of ways, and was one reason why the popes, after Innocent 
IV., generally kept away from Eome, and preferred to reside in the 
small provincial towns. 

3 This is especially brought out by the Eoman Oratorian, Thomas 
Bozio, De Signis EcclesiseY. 24, c. 6. 

4. Bellarmine is really wavering between opposite interpretations. 
See on this Malvenda, De Antichristo, i, 367, who excuses him on 
account of the obscurity and difSculty of the question. 



THE PROPHECY ABOUT ROME, 323 



judgment upon the city, the papal chair must be 
translated to some other place, for the continuance 
of the papacy was not a matter of dispute. Then 
the conclusion was readily drawn, that it was not 
an indissoluble bond, which bound together the 
highest ecclesiastical dignity and power with Rome 
and the Roman episcopate. For with the destruc- 
tion of Rome ended at least the Roman episcop- 
ate, and yet the Church was to continue, and ought 
to continue, much longer. Many consequently were 
of the opinion that, as Antioch, while Peter resided 
there, had been the seat of the primacy before Rome, 
and as there was no divine command for transferring 
it from thence to Rome, so, in these later times, the 
papal powdr might be transferred to another city and 
another Church. 




V. The Characteristics of the Prophets. 



Looking more closely at the characteristics of 
the prophets, we soon perceive that when men of 
theological culture, like Joachim and Savonarola^ 
supposed themselves to be endowed with the pro- 
phetic gift, they nevertheless remained under the in- 
fluence of the prevailing opinions in the theology of 
the schools, concerning the nature and conditions of 
this endowment. It was the universal teaching of 
these schools, that the gift of prophecy was, of itself, 
no sign of especial piety or sanctity of life ; that even 
bad men might receive this gift from God (they ap- 
pealed here to the Biblical statements concerning 
Caiaphas). Accordingly it seemed no presumption, nor 
to imply any assumption of the heroic christian virtues, 
for a man to lay claim to the gift of foreseeing future 
events. ^ Not even a special spiritual endowment, nor 

1 Thus the Dominican, Bemadin Panlini, in the address he made 
before Paul IV., who was about to condemn the writings of Savona- 
rola, says : Ora dunque, se Fra Girolamo fu santo ; o tristo, io non ne 
parlo ; basta che non e impossibile, ch' egli fusse Profeta, essendo, 
come si sa, date e concesse le profezie anche ai tristi" ; in Quetif, 
Vita P. Hieron Savonarolse, ii, 572. The doctrine that bad men may 
sometimes be true prophets has gone over into the canon law : 
see in Gratian's Decrelum, Can. Multas autem, and Can. Prophetavit, 



CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 325 

an unusual susceptibility to spiritual influences, said 
the theologians, was necessary for the prophetic func- 
tions. They contested the opinion of the Rabbis, 
who required of the prophet a natural gift and a high 
degree of insight and wisdom. A double conscious- 
ness, however, they said, must concur, in order to con- 
stitute a genuine prophet. He must, to wit, know with 
entire certainty that what is revealed to him is 
true, and he must be convinced with equal certainty 
that God is the author of the revelation. Such pro- 
phets as Joachim and others used to affirm, it is true, 
that not the spirit of the prophets, but only of inter- 
pretation, had been given to them, in consequence of 
a higher illumination — to foretell what they found 
announced in the prophetical books of the Bible con- 
cerning the events of their own and of immediately 
succeeding ages. But that these announcements were 
infallibly true, and that every event must certainly 
come to pass, no one, to my knowledge, affirmed. 
For it was a generally accepted doctrine, that a seer 
might mix with the visions imparted by divine illumi- 
nation, other elements, not genuine, attributable to 
human agency, merely. Thomas Aquinas accord- 
ingly believed, that when the prophetic illumination 
was perfect, it brought with it a divinely assured 
certainty, and from this conviction might be obtained 

2« 



326 CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 



a guarantee of its heavenly origin, a most unreliable 
criterion, since strength and liveliness of fancy are 
frequently the source of this confidence. Yet the rule, 
that on the whole a prophet has no guarantee against 
self-deception, must be granted by every one who is 
even in a slight degree acquainted with the subject of 
visions and revelations. It was also conceded, on the 
ground of the Biblical examples of Jonas and Isaiah, 
that certain prophetic warnings {propJieticz commina- 
toinoi) were not fulfilled, in case of the conversion of 
those to whom the warnings were addressed. And 
it was also admitted, that frequently the full compre- 
hension of the prophecy was not disclosed to him who 
received it, for the prophet must ever be but an im- 
perfect instrument in the hand of God : so that in 
many cases the prophecy itself, as given by God, was 
true ; but the organ, the man, gave it a false interpret- 
ation. 1 

It was not until the great ecclesiastical and political 
agitation after the middle of the eleventh century, 
that individuals, borne up by the waves of this 

1 Aquinas brings this out in his Summa, 2, 2 quasst. 173, art. 4. 
Lambertini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIV,, explains it, in his work 
De Servorum Dei Beatific atione (Padua, 1743),' e. iii, p. 443, by refer- 
ring to the unfortunate prediction of St. Bernard. This pope also 
says : " Fieri potest, ut aliquis sanctus ex anticipatis opinionibus 
aut ideis in phantasia fixis aliqua sibi a Deo revelata putet, qu£e a Deo 
revelata non sunt*" 



CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 327 

movement, were carried on, in the full assurance oY 
their hearts to the prophetic announcement of definite 
events. When one believes himself to live in an at- 
mosphere of miracles, he may easily persuade himself 
that he possesses the gift of prophecy, and such an 
one is open to the temptation of foretelling an earnest- 
ly-wished-for event, or one in his opinion necessary 
or suited to the divine plan for governing the world: 
Such attempts at prophecy have usually failed, it is 
true, and this may have sobered and deterred those 
that came afterwards. Peter Damiani prophesied 
the death of the anti-pope Cadalous, within a year's 
time. Cadalous lived beyond the year; and Peter 
knew no better way of answering the scoffs of his 
numerous opponents than this : " Cadalous was de- 
posed by a synod, and that might be called death." ^ 
The friend and fellow combatant of Damiani, Pope 
Gregory VII., publicly prophesied at the Easter festi- 
val, 1080, that Henry, the German emperor, unless he 
should make his submission before June 1st, would be 
either deposed or dead ; if not, no one afterwards need 
believe him, the pope. The result convicted him 
also of falsehood. ^ But the later chroniclers, who 
would vindicate for the pope the right of Caiaphas, to 

1. Petri Damiani Opera, iii, 410, ed. Bassan. 
2 Bonizojiu Qefele, Script. Rerum Bote, i, 819* 



328 CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 

prophesy the truth as high-priest, even in opposition 
to his own opinion, discovered a way of escape. The 
chronicle of San-Bavo ^ asserts : " The pope simply 
announced that God had revealed to him, that the false 
king should die that year. He supposed it was 
Henry, but the false king was Rudolph, who really 
died at that time. " 

There was great excitement throughout Europe, 
when St. Bernard, so distinguished as a man, and 
celebrated as a saint, was found to be a false prophet. 
At the command of Pope Eugene HI., he had pro- 
claimed a new crusade in France and Germany, and 
promised victory and success in the name of God. The 
contrary occurred. The armies were ruined by 
hunger, pestilence and the sword of Saracens ; the 
whole Occident was thrown into mourning, and Ber- 
nard saw himself brought face to face with the charge 
of deceiving the people and leading them astray. He 
could only say that the command of the pope had 
passed with him for the word of God, and could only 
appeal to the pope, that he would answer for him. ^ 
And he scarcely found much comfort in the an- 
nouncement of the abbot, John of Casa-Maria, who 

1 In the Corpus Chronic. Flandrise, ed. de Smet (Brussels, 1837,) 
i, 564. 

2 Bernardi Consider ationes^ lib. ii; at the beginning. 



CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 329 



assured him that the guardian saints of his cloister, 
the martyrs, John and Paul, had appeared and dis- 
closed to him, that God had permitted the fall of the 
christian armies, in order that the vacant places of the 
fallen angels in Paradise might be filled from the 
souls of those christian warriors who had lost their 
lives in this crusade. ^ 

Vincens Ferrer, in the beginning of the fifteenth 
century, was almost as much reverenced in south-west- 
ern Europe, as a holy man, and fearless preacher of 
the truth, as Bernard in his times. Vincens felt 
called to proclaim, before all things, the great fact 
of the public and speedy appearance of Antichrist, 
that he might prepare mankind for the dreadful 
conflict. Rfe was fully aware, when he wrote to 
Pope Benedict XI I L, that the Antichrist was al- 
ready nine years old ; it had been contemporaneously 
revealed to many ; demons had been forced by 
exorcism to declare it. ^ This eloquent Dominican 
probably died in the firm conviction that within a 
few years the truth of his prediction would be palpable 
to all ; and it cost the brethren of his Order, Antoninus 

1 Epistolse S. Bernardi, ed, Mabillon, epistle 386. Wilken in his 
Geschichte der Kreuzziige, iii, 273, has entirely misunderstood this, 
in the sense of the final restoration. 

2 The larger part of the prophecy of Vincens is given in Malvenda, 
De Antichristo, i, 120. 



330 CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 

and others, no little pains to rescue the good name of 
the prophet from the reproach of presumption and 
superstition. 

To Saint Catharine of Siena was accorded by her 
contemporaries the right to prophesy, as two centuries 
before to the German Hildegarde. But the world since 
then must be convinced that she had not a prophetic 
view of the future development of history. She foretold 
a great and general crusade for the conquest of Pales- 
tine, and endeavored to induce Pope Gregory XI. to 
prepare for it The crusade did not follow. She an- 
nounced that a great and thorough-going Reformation 
would soon pervade the whole Church.^ "The bride (the 
Church)," she said, " now all deformed and clothed in 
rags, will then gleam with beauty and jewels, and be 
crowned with the diadem of all the virtues. All believ- 
ing nations will rejoice to have such excellent and 
holy shepherds ; and the unbelieving world, attracted 
by the glory of the Church, will be converted to her." 
How little have these longings of the devout maiden 
of Siena been transformed into history ! In place 
of this great renovation, this conversion of unchristian 
nations, and this brilliant sanctity, we have had only 
a long series of destructive religious wars, and lasting 
sundering of the greatest and most vital nationalities ! 

1 Acta Sanctorum^ Bolland, April III, 924, 



CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS, 331 

St Brigitta, but a few years before, had prophesied , 
better and more correctly. She, as the organ of the Holy 
Virgin, announced a mighty collapse {ruind) of the 
Church, as impending. She portrayed the breaches in 
the walls, the columns levelled to the earth, the great 
gaps in the pavement, and so forth. ^ But Catharine 
herself also appears to have believed that the reno- 
vation of the Church would not in any case come 
through the papal chair ; for she affirmed, that if a 
pope should attempt to reform the barbarized clergy, 
a great division would rend and pervade the entire 
Church. 2 

Two opposing currents ran through the souls of 
those who in the time of the 14th and 15 th centuries 
were moved to prophecy. On the one side the view, 
deeply rooted in the general religious consciousness 
that the state of the Church was altogether unendura- 
ble, and that only the hope of a great and impending 
reformation could prop up the tottering faith in the 
truth of Christianity. On the other side was the feeling 
that suitable instruments for this renovation were no- 
where to be found ; and that in the source whence 
they were to be expected, namely Rome, there was 

1 Revelaiiones, 78, p. 293, ed, Antwerp, 

2 Facient tunc scandalum universale toti ecclesias Dei quod tan- 
quam lia;rctica pestis scindet et trxbulabit earn, p. 925. 



332 CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 

neither inclination nor capacity for the work. Thus 
it happened that individual men, as, for exemple, 
William St. Amour, Ryckel and Jacobus de Paradiso, 
wearied out and disheartened, believed that there was 
no hope left for the Church ; that she would remain in 
her degradation until the appearance, so soon to be 
expected, of the Antichrist. Others, on the con- 
trary, — and they seemed to constitute the majority — 
foretold with confidence a thorough-going purification 
and renovation of the Church, which her founder could 
not possibly permit to go on in such a perverted form. 

But also, in harmony with the prevailing popular 
view, it was expected that a bloody judgment, a bitter 
persecution of the clergy, and above all, of the highest 
leaders as the most guilty, would precede the renova- 
tion of the Church. 

It was often the longing for better things which led 
men of great spiritual endowments to predict the future. 
The present seemed to them intolerable. They 
perceived with pain the contradiction between their 
situation and the demands of the time, which their reli- 
gious faith, and their love of country forced them to 
recognize. As with nations so with individuals. With 
this longing, a presentiment was generally associated, 
that the times lay in the pains of child-birth ; that 
humanity stood upon the borders of great changes and 



CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 333 

transformations. Savonarola at first was himself terri- 
fied by the impulse to prophecy which gradually over- 
powered him and controlled his thinking and action. 
" I do not desire," said he, " to be taken for a prophet, 
for that is a weighty and dangerous name, makes a man 
restless, and arouses against him many persecutions, 
even though for the love of Christ he may be willing 
to endure them." ^ " You force me," cried he after- 
wards to the Florentines, " to be a prophet." ^ " The 
sins of Italy open my mouth. An inward fire con- 
sumes my bones and forces me to speak." 

How different from Savonarola, and yet kindred 
with him, was another prophet of the Dominican 
order, the learned and profound Campanella, a man of 
genius. In him also, the prophetic office must go hand 
in hand with political efforts. To him, a Calabrian, 
the misfortunes of his narrow native land, Calabria, 
as well as the condition of the whole of Lower 
Italy, then oppressed by Spanish rule, weighed heavi- 
ly upon his heart. He saw his people humiliated by 
an oppression which a modern writer, well acquainted 
with Italian affairs, has characterized as perhaps the 
most wretched that has existed in christian times.^ He 

1 Compendium Revelationum,'p. 274. 

2 In his Prediche fatte Vanno del 1496, f. 359. 

3 See Ganganelli^ seine Briefe und seine Zeit, by Von Reumont, au- 
thor of the Romische Briefe ^ Berlin, 1847, p. 32. 



334 CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 

said that Southern Italy must become a republic under 
the theocratic dominion of the Papacy ; and in order to 
gain partisans and confederates, he foretold (basing 
his prophecies upon the predictions of Joachim, Bri- 
gitta, Savonarola, and on his exposition of the Apoca- 
lypse), a transformation of Italy, to occur in the year 
1600. Like Savonarola, he said at the same time : 
" I do not make myself out a prophet, and a wonder- 
worker, and yet I see, perhaps, some great things." ^ 
Speedily betrayed, his undertaking failed. He spent 
twenty-seven years in fifty different prisons ; he was 
seven times stretched on the rack, until at last he 
found an asylum in France. Did then the result, the 
external quiet of Italy during the year 1600, unde- 
ceive him in regard to the truth of his prophecies .-^ In 
the beautiful and stirring poems in which he breathed 
forth the changing moods of his long prison life, 
his anxiety and his hope, his trust in God, and his 
despair, he raises his complaint towards God : " Shall 
then the host of the prophets, whom thou sendest, lie 1 ^ 
Wherefore dost thou let the stars and the prophets. 
Thy gifts, alike become delusive teachers ^ In the 

1 In the Prooemium to his Aiheismus Triumphatus, in Struvii 
Collectanea Manuscriptorum (Jena, 1713), ii, 68, 

2 Poesie Filosofiche di Campanella, pubbl.da G-. C. Orelli (Lugano 
1834), Madrigale, viii, p. IGl. 

3 Madrigale, i, p. 144. 



CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 335 



book which he wrote in prison, " The Spanish Mo- 
narchy," Campanelia still shows himself full of faith in 
prophecy ; and lays special emphasis on the assertion 
that St. Brigitta foretold the discovery of America. 

A man in whom we may distinctly trace the effects 
of pain and disappointment produced by earnest 
reflection ending at last in prophetic vision, was 
Dionysius Ryckel (or Leewis), styled the ecstatic 
teacher, a priest of the deepest and most earnest piety, 
and at the same time the most learned theologian of 
his age. Like all the men of insight in Germany, 
like his friend and patron Nicolas of Cusa, he shared 
fully in the view of the Church as to the neces- 
sity of councils and of their authority over the popes. 
His hopes, like those of all others, rested upon a new 
council, which he saw at the same time the popes 
tried to prevent with all their shrewdness and power. 

This continual and torturing contemplation of the 
condition of the Church and the world (in the year 
1461) led him to visions and revelations ; and he came 
to see, in converse with the divine Master (what was 
the product of his own reflections), that the measure 
of impending chastisements and judgments would be 
accurately dealt out, according to the measure of the 
present ecclesiastical corruption. ^ It was revealed 

1 Opus^-ula Insigniora Dionysii Corihusiani, Doctoris Estntici (Co- 
logne, 1559), p. 747. Here are found the three " rcvelationcs." 



336 CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 

to him that the Church was utterly backslidden and 
pei*verted ; from the crown of the head to the sole of 
the foot there was no soundness to be found in by far 
the larger part. As to her leaders, even should they 
swear to reform, they would but forswear themselves. 
It was the time (1461) of the vain attempt of Pope 
Pius II. to bring about a christian crusade against 
the Turks, after the loss of Constantinople. Diony- 
sius prophesied that all these efforts must come to 
naught, as actually happened. It was even expected, 
with a certain deep sense of guilt, that a Turkish ar- 
my would soon sweep over the Latin and German na- 
tions of the West. 

Ryckel's contemporary and friend, the deepest 
thinker of his time. Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, like 
him also became a prophet without precisely claiming 
for his declarations a high degree of illumination. 
Cusa also had a clear perception of the deep corrup- 
tion of the Church, and of its prime cause, the des- 
potic and avaricious Papacy, as it then was. Thus 
he also came to the convictions, which, after he had 
outlived the failures of the reformatory councils, he 
delivered in the form of prophecy : " The Church 
would sink still deeper, until she should at last seem 
to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and 



CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 337 

the other apostles to have expired. ^ But after that 
she will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all 
doubters." ^ 

There were other visionary prophets, to whom the 
future was only revealed in symbolic pictures, of the 
signification of which, however, they were assured 
with inward certainty. Of such were the Dominican 
Robert of Usez, at the end of the thirteenth century, 
and the German priest and founder of a monastic or- 
der, Bartholomew Holzhauser, in the middle of the 
seventeenth century. This order affirmed of Robert 
that he was endowed from his youth with the spirit 
of prophecy, and had been continually accompanied 
by the same ; that his gift had been formally tested at 
an assembly of his Order at Carcassone, in the year 
1293, and that, on account of the satisfactory charac- 
ter of his answers, he had been commissioned to jour- 
ney through France, Italy and Germany as preacher 
and prophet. While Robert beheld, especially in sym- 
bols, the corruption of the Church and of the papal 
chair, Holzhauser's visions reflected the longings of a 
man of narrow views, desiring to correct the history of 

1 " Kulla mnjor difformitas ab aliquo poterit exoriri, qnam ab 
illo, qui, suae magn« potestatis intuitu licere sibi cuncta credens, in 
subditorum jura prorumpet," are his words in Concordia CathoLy 2, 
27, p. 729, ed. Basel. 

8 Opera, Basle edition, p. 932. 
29 



338 CHARACTERISTICS of the PROPHETS. 



the world, because the course and the consequences of 
the Thirty Years' War had assumed quite a different 
aspect from that which his opinions required. His 
commentary on the Apocalypse, which formerly had 
many believing readers, is written in the same spirit. 




VI. The Cosmopolitical Prophecies, 



Turning now to that class of prophecies which I 
have styled the " cosmopolitical,'' we may distinguish 
four periods. The first extends from the Carlovingian 
times to the end of the twelfth century. The second 
period, the Joachimist, extends over the thirteenth 
and half of the fourteenth centuries. The third divi- 
sion covers that gloomy time from about 1347 to 
1450 ; this was the time of the Black Death, the Papal 
Schism, and of the brightening expectation, soon to be 
extinguished in darkness, of the renovation of the 
Church by means of councils. Then followed the fourth 
prophetic epoch, comprising a period of about 77 years, 
from 1450 to 15 17. In this, the prophecies are wholly 
filled with the thought of the judgments impending 
over Rome, popes and clergy, and with longings for 
the reformation of the Church ; so that at last, this 
prophetic expectation became the common conscious- 
ness, the saving anchor of faith, of all earnest religious 
spirits. 

In the first period, in the ninth and tenth centu- 
ries, and until the middle of the eleventh, the coming 
of Antichrist and the approaching end of the world 

839 



340 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 

are the well-nigh exclusive objects of men's presenti- 
ments. As life in great cities, and popular literature, 
were not yet developed, and as there were thus no 
important centres of spiritual growth — we are here 
restricted to the aid of ideas prevailing in cloisters. 
In this seclusion, men did not look either backwards 
or fomard, but chiefly from presages, or from phy- 
sical and moral phenomena not understood, they 
formed their conclusions as to the speedy termina- 
tion of the v/orld's history, with no presentiment 
or comprehension of its goal or of its progressive 
culture. There was but one fundamental thought in 
this and the following time, that the existence and du- 
ration of the present order of the Vv^orld were indis- 
solubly bound up with the continuance of the Roman 
empire, as thi?. was renev/ed in, or made over to, the 
Carlovingian dynasty, and after its overthrow to Ger- 
many and its kings. It was accordingly styled the 
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, for it 
was held to be the all-supporting keystone of the 
christian world, which could not be abandoned until 
the process of the world's dissolution began. While 
this kingdom lasted, and the people did not desert it, 
the last day was still distant, — so they believed and 
thus they spoke. And hence that general fear or ex- 
pectation that Antichrist would soon come, and that 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 341 

the end of all things was near {appropinquante mnndi 
termino, as the formula run). About the beginning 
of the eleventh century, the minds of men were dis- 
tressed, not only because the history of the Church 
had passed through a thousand years, but still more 
because the kingdom which Otto 1. had exalted to 
such a position of power and glory, appeared, on the 
death of his powerless uncle, Otto III., ready to fall 
in pieces. 

The most prominent prophetical authorities of this 
time were Methodius from the Byzantine Orient, and 
St. Hildegarde. Under the name of that distinguished 
Bishop of Patara, in Lycia, who suffered martyrdom 
in the persecution under Diocletian, the so-called 
" Re ."clations " first came to light, probably in the 
eleventh century in Constantinople. The author's 
name can scarcely have been Methodius, as was 
assumed. He simply put his productions into the 
lips of that teacher of the Church, who had written 
a celebrated commentary on the Apocalypse. The 
writing was adapted to the Byzantine Greeks, and 
was designed to administer comfort, courage and 
hope, in the time of a manifestly increasing weak- 
ness of the Eastern empire, and when the domi- 
nion of the Mohammedans was extending its sway 
over the whole of Asia. Methodius announced the 



342 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 



victory and conquests of the Ishmaelites (Arabs) 
breaking forth from the desert. God had given them 
victory, and allowed them to subjugate so many chris- 
tian lands and nations as a punishment for the sins of 
the laity and clergy. But still the Empire of Rome, as 
the author and all his countrymen designated the By- 
zantine (East Roman or Greek) Empire, shall not be 
eternally overthrown by any power ; its weapons are 
invincible, and it shall subdue all kingdoms at last. Ac- 
cordingly, an emperor and his son are to fall upon the 
Ishmaelites, when they fancy themselves most secure, 
and suddenly wrest from them all their previously 
conquered lands, and impose upon them a yoke of 
servitude a hundredfold worse than that with which 
they have oppressed the Christians. Finally, the last 
of the Roman (i. e. Byzantine) emperors is to journey 
towards the emancipated Jerusalem, and there lay his 
crown at the feet of Christ. Then comes the end of all 
things, Gog and Magog, and Antichrist, and the last 
judgment. 

This representation of the abdication of the last 
monarch in Jerusalem is also found in the Occident, 
in a writing of the Abbot Adso, composed about the 
year 948, at the request of Queen Gerberga. Since the 
empire was not until some years later (in 961) trans- 
ferred to the Germans, one of the Frank kings was here 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 343 

represented as the last and most powerful of the 
emperors, who was to bring to a close the course of his- 
tory in such a devout and humble style. For, said 
the abbot of Moutier-en-Der, " the Roman king- 
dom is almost destroyed, to be sure, but it will survive ^ 
in the kings of the Franks. (A Carlovingian is 
meant ; for the house of Capet had not at that time yet 
arisen.) 

But Methodius now essentially controlled the views 
of the Occident concerning the course of the world's 
history ; for in the first half of the twelfth century, a 
Latin translation of his prophecies must have been in 
circulation. The Turks had then displaced the 
Ishmaelites (Arabs) ; the Roman kingdom and the 
Roman emperor were naturally made to refer to Ger- 
many and Italy, and the emperors of German birth. 
Thus was Methodius the original source of those ex- 
pectations cherished even until modern times, that the 
Turks would yet some time sweep over the whole of 
Germany, and their horses drink the waters of the 
Rhine. Even Otto of Freisingen, in his preface to his 
Chronicles, addressed to Chancellor Reinhold, intro- 
duces Methodius as authority for the continuance of 

1 This work is in the Appendix to the Benedictine edition of Au- 
gustine, iv, 243. 



344 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 

the Roman empire which was to be fully destroyed 
only at the end of time. 

Another view, deeply imprinted upon the fancy of 
the Middle Ages, was drawn from the same source. 
From Rev. xx, lo, it was inferred that heathen 
nations, from far distant regions, Gog and Magog 
(Scythians) would, at the end of time, gather together 
against the New Jerusalem, and be by her destroyed. 
Now, according to Methodius, Alexander the Great 
had formerly shut up the race of Gog and Magog in 
the Caspian mountains by a miracle ; but the mountains 
were some time to open again, and then this stream 
of wild conquerors and avengers would be poured 
forth over the world. There was in this a presenti- 
ment of the great Mongolian irruption in the thirteenth 
century, and yet the myth is found in the Syrian 
poem of a Jacobite of the end of the sixth century. 
There it is God himself who is described as opening 
the door of the rocks for the ruin of the nations. ^ 
Now the chronicles of Alberich in the year 1237 2 an- 
nounce, that the Minorite Peter de Boreth had from 
Acre declared, that the Antichrist was already grow- 
ing up, and would be ten years old in March. It was 
added in connection therewith, that this was Impos- 

1 The Revelation ofJem^ 6?/ Jolin Kooper (London, 1861), ii, 438. 

2 In the Recueil des Historiens de la France^ xxi, 596. 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 345 

sible, since the tower of Babel must first be rebuilt, 
the closed Caspian mountains must open, the river 
Ethan flow, and the idol of Mohammed fall to pieces ; 
that is, Islamism was to die out or decay. 

The Latin text of Methodius must also have varied 
very much, with reference to the last things. That 
feature, that the last emperor of the Frank race was 
to go to Jerusalem, lay his crown upon the mount of 
Olives and there die, is certainly not found in the 
original Greek. This originated in the tenth century, 
from a writing by the monk Adso, which was generally 
taken in the middle ages for a work of the Arch- 
bishop Rabanus of Mayence. But this addition was 
variously given. According to Engelbert of Admcnt, ^ 
Methodius said : " The last emperor would be in- 
capable of withstanding the Ishmaelites (Mohammed- 
ans), and would lay down his sceptre, crown, and 
shield on a withered tree, beyond the sea, and there 
give up the ghost." The history of the world, accord- 
ing to this view, was to terminate (before the Anti- 
christ) with a great victory of Islam over the Christian 
faith. A view, so dispiriting, so conducive to doubt, 
led Engelbert to the remark : " The doctors, it is true, 
out of reverence for the holy martyr (the supposed 

1 Be Oriu et Fine Rom. Irajperii, in the Bibliolh. PP. Lugdun,. 
XXV, 378. 



346 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 

author) did not venture to reject it, and yet attributed 
little weight to it." It was certainly not found in the 
manuscripts, for in the printed editions the course of 
the last days is given quite differently. ^ The Ishmael- 
ites or Turks are completely conquered and subjug- 
ated ; but the Christians immediately fall, during a 
long and all too happy condition of peace and pros- 
perity, into fleshly security and luxury, until Gog and 
Magog set on foot a fearful slaughter, whereupon 
the Roman king proceeds towards Golgotha, takes 
his crown from his head, lays it upon the cross, and 
restores the kingdom of the Christians to God the 
Father. Thus the shame was at least averted cf 
a final victory over the Christians by their ancient 
hereditary foe, the Turks, and Methodius remained, 
especially for the Germans, a book of comfort and of 
hope. Sebastian Brandt says in the preface, in the 
year 1497 : " I give it over to the press, because, as I 
hope, the promised triumph of the christian republic 
over the unbelievers and Turks, is now quite near." 
And in the year 1 5 1 8 the warning cry still went forth 
to Emperor Maximilian, 2 

" Give ear, o king, for God hath called 
That thou th : suffering christian world 

1 In the Orthodoxographa cBasel, 1555,) p. 397, and in the edition 
of Sebastian Brandt, Basle, 1504. 

2 In Liliencron, III, 215. 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 347 



May'st bring again unto its right. 
How oft to arm thee to the fight. 
Hath He His holy servant sent, 
Methodius, to this intent." 1 

After this it was added, that it had been prophesied 
of an Emperor MaximiHan, that he should fill the 
Holy Land with christian faith still, — another of the 
many hopes which remained unrealized. 

In another writing composed by the Dominicans in 
the year 1474, in order to console the Christians for 
the fall of Constantinople, ^ Methodius, the " Doctor 
authenticus", as he is here styled, is again the chief 
authority, ^ of course not in the form in which Engel- 
bert read him, but in the more encouraging text. Here 
it was related, that many fathers had subjected Metho- 
dius to a careful investigation, the result of which was 
now imparted. Germany and France would be de- 
vastated by internal wars, but should not fall under the 

1 Kaiser, Schick dich, Gott will dir helf, 
Dass du die armen Christenwelf 
Widerumb bringest zu einem recht ; 
Das liab dir Gott den seinen Knecht 
Zu schauen manigvalt gesant, 
Methodius Avar er genant. 

2 Q}ii pro fide mancipatus carceribus angelo sibi revelante libnm 
eonscripsit, is added. (Who enslaved for the faith, wrote a book in 
prison, an angel revealing unto him.) In that case certainly every 
word must have been infallible, and still be going into fulfilment. 

3 Tractatus quidam de Turcis, prout ad praesens Ecclesia sancta 
ab eis affligitur (Nuremburg, 1481). 



348 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 

Turkish yoke. Whether Rome would be conquered 
by the Turks, had been asked by an enlightened 
monk, worthy to receive divine revelations, to whom 
Christ had answered, that it was not at present advi- 
sable that he should know this, nor who should be 
the victor in the next Turkish war. 

The first of the prophets of more recent times was 
Saint Hildegarde of Bingen on the - Rhine. This 
German prophetess stands alone, in a peculiar position, 
actually attained by no other in the entire christian 
history. No prophet has ever acquired so high con- 
sideration, no saint so general confidence, or such 
unbounded reverence, ^ — not Bernard himself, who 
paid reverence to her as the more highly gifted, al- 
though she was neither spared from attacks, suspicions, 
nor even scorn and ridicule. Her character and her 
revelations were investigated at a great assembly of 
the Church, presided over by Pope Eugene III., and 
guaranteed and accepted as genuine. Three popes, 
two emperors, many bishops and abbots came to ask 
council of her, hoping that divine revelations might be 
through her imparted to them ; and it is worthy of note, 
that in the letters addressed to her by Popes Eugene, 

1 Famosissima ilia prophetissa Novi Testamentij cum quS- familia- 
riter locutus est Deus ; so wrote the author of the Vita S. Gerlaci, in 
the Acta Sanctorum, 5. Januar. c. 8. 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 349 

Anastasius and Hadrian IV., there still remains a 
breath of genuine humility, and recognition of their 
own fallibility and neglect of duty. ^ Bernard still 
ventured to write his book, and to warn the papacy, 
although in vain, against the fearful strides it was mak- 
ing in the path of despotism and centraHzation. Hil- 
degarde was in this respect a true German prophetess, 
in that, as none of her sex before or since have done, 
she portrayed the spontaneous ethical uprising of the 
Germanic nationalities, rather than of the Latin race, 
against the degeneracy and the abominations of an 
insatiable and avaricious hierarchy, corrupting the 
life of humanity, — a state of things which then was 
not developed to such a degree as was portrayed, but 
which was wide spread after the thirteenth century. 
The time was to come, she said, when princes and 
people would renounce the authority of the papacy, 
because religion is found in her no more ; then would 
separate countries prefer their own church rulers to 
the Pope; the latter, with greatly diminished reve- 
rence, would be confined to Rome, and a few surroun- 
ding places. 2 Hildegarde also foretold the breaking 

1 For example, Eugene III. wrote to her, that he rejoiced that in 
these times God had ilhimined her hy his Spirit, and given to her so 
great insight ; sed quid nos ad hsec dicere valemus, qui clavim scien- 
tice habentes, ita quod claudere et aperire possimus et hoc prudenter 
facere per stultitiam negligimus. 

2 Quia enim nee principes nee reliqui homines tam spiritalis quam 

80 



350 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 

up of the German Empire; each people and each race 
would have its own princes, under the pretext 
" that the magnitude of the kingdom had become 
rather a burden than an honor;" and just this division, 
and diminution of the strength of the empire, would 
entail the fall of the papal dignity. 

Hildegarde incontestably had much to do with the 
fact, that in the middle ages the expectation of a great 
judgrrient upon the clergy, and a bloody persecution 
of the priests, was so deeply fixed in the mind of the 
German nation. She even foretold a great and uni- 
versal secularization of the property of the Church, and 
a return of the clergy, ruined by riches and avarice, 
to moderate and more equally divided incomes. In a 
poem of the fifteenth century upon the council of 
Constance, it was said of her descriptions of simony 
and clerical luxury : 

" How sadi)' their course hath marred. 
From Bingen, saith Saint Hildegarde, 
Within her book of wit and taste. 
Who reads, hath well the truth embraced ! " 1 

Yet Italy was the land where the prophetic spirit, 

SEBCiilaris ordinis in Apostolico nomine ullam religionem tunc inve- 
nient, dignitatem nominis illius tunc imminent, etc. Liber DivinO' 
rum Operum, in Baluze, 3Iisceilanea, ed. Mansi, ii, 447. 

1 Wie hatdenschfidliclikltiglichLauf 
Gesait van Bingen Hiltgart 
In Ihrem Buch, die witz, die zart, 
Wer ir Buch liest, dafs man's wol brustf 

(Liliencron, HistoriscTie Volkslieder, i, 248.) 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 35 1 

especially since the beginning of the thirteenth century 
and without cessation until the end of the fourteenth, 
grew most luxuriantly. In no country was there then a 
life so rich and manifold, and such a wrestling of all 
powers and passions. There Imperialism and Papacy 
for more than two centuries fought with one another 
like two giants ; there France and Germany contended 
for the mastery, now openly and now in secret. 
Through entire upper and middle Italy prevailed the 
irreconcilable feud between the two pai'ties, the Guelplis 
and the Ghibellines, from which no one high or low 
could stand aloof. While the mighty devoted them- 
selves to astrology, and not seldom, like Frederick 
Ezzelino, kept their court astrologers, and never entered 
upon any important undertaking without first having 
consulted the favorable constellations, the people rioted 
in prophetic proverbs. Guelphs as well as Ghibellines 
had their own prophecies. MerHn and the Sybil had 
to lend their names, which had become typical, to the 
continually fresh productions which were called forth 
by the powerful popular demand for prophecy. Mi- 
chael Scoto, the astrologer of the Emperor Frederick, 
Asdenta of Parma, and especially Joachim, stood in 
high esteem. Sibylline prophecies were all the more 
confidently trusted since it was believed that the Si- 
bylline books were still preserved in the Lateran church 



352 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 

at Rome. ^ Scoto and Asdenta were by Dante 
placed among the damned as false prophets ; and the 
latter, a shoemaker of Parma, he represents as in hell, 
repenting that he had not kept to his trade. His con- 
temporary, Salimbene, however, reported that he 
heard much from him which afterwards occurred ; and 
i.lso that Asdenta, solely by the diligent perusal of the 
writings of the classic prophets of the time, Methodius 
and Joachim, together with the sayings of Merlin, 
Scoto and the Sybils, had cultivated the art of pro- 
phecy. 2 

In Germany, Hildegarde stood a long time un- 
rivalled. From her death until towards the end of 
the thirteenth century and even into the fourteenth, 
no utterances of the prophetic impulse and spirit 
worthy of mention are presented among the Germans. 
All of the German literature, it is true, from the 
middle of the thirteenth century until its close, was 
very barren as well in the Latin as in the German 
tongue, and yet more barren and fragmentary are the 
historic documents and chronicles which we possess of 
this period. But one and the same event of world- 
wide significance was, for both Germany and Italy, 

1 Huillard Breholles, Preface, p. xxxvi, in his edition of the Chro- 
nicon Placentinum, Paris, 1856. 

2 Salimbene, Chron.^ p. 284, in the Monumenia Hist. Farmens. (Par- 
ma, 1857). 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 353 



equally decisive and momentous ; although Italy was 
at first plunged, in a far higher degree than Germany, 
into incurable disasters in consequence of the same. 
That event was the victory of the Papacy over the 
Empire, — the fall and overthrow of the House of the 
Hohenstaufen, with which was connected the regularly 
planned weakening and sundering of the Romano- 
Germanic empire by the popes, resulting to the ad- 
vantage of the Curia, of the French kings, and of the 
Italian Guelphic party. It was clearly seen that the 
popes, especially the French popes, and Urban IV., 
Clement IV., Martin IV., did everything to prevent the 
formation in Germany of any unity, of any powerful 
royal house, of any firm and well ordered government 
of the empire. It was speedily recognized that in 
consequence of this procedure of the popes, an em- 
peror in the true sense could not be obtained by 
election, and that a Guelph kingdom in Lower Italy 
supported by French authority was impossible. And 
yet it belonged to the religious consciousness of the 
world at that day, which regarded the empire as an 
indispensable constituent, an organ of the one Catholic 
Church, that its dissolution would lead to a general 
falling away from the papal chair ; for a three-fold 
discessio according to 2 Thes. ii, was universally ac- 
cepted viz : ab iinperio^ a sede apostolico^ a fide ; so that 



354 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 

it seemed to many that the popes were laboring, as if 
driven by a fatahty and an irresistible impulse of the 
stars, to undermine their own authority. Hence the 
certainty, that the fall of the kingdom would introduce 
the outbreak of the rule of Antichrist, with all its in- 
describable series of abominations and apostasies. The 
judgment of contemporaries presents to us the key to 
the origin of the prophecies of the time and of their 
influence. 

In England, where there then was more historic 
insight, and a better historical literature than in the 
rest of Europe, the contemporary judgment is per- 
tinent and pragmatic : " The Roman Curia, that it 
may rule alone, has effected the hopeless destruction 
of the Roman Empire." ^ In Italy the Sibyl was in 
favor of the Guelph and the French papal party, and 
it accordingly announced, that on the death of Frede- • 
rick II., the Germanic Roman Empire itself would go 
to its grave. The Florentine Guelph, Brunetto Latini, 
in his work written in French about 1 266, gives it as 
his opinion, that " if Merlin and the Sibyl tell the 
truth, Frederick and the imperial dignity will end 
together ; yet I do not know whether this is to be 

1 Imperium Romanum, procurante Curia Romana, ut sola domina- 
retur, suspenditiir desperatum. CAron. Joh. de Oxenedes ad a. 1251 
(London, 1860). 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 355 

understood of his race, or of the Germans, or of both 
together." ^ We learn however from his contemporary 
and countryman, Salimbene, that the Sibyl expressed 
herself very distinctly. " In him," she said, " the 
kingdom shall come to an end, for although he shall 
have successors, they shall nevertheless be deprived 
of the title of Emperor, and of the Roman dignity 
(fastigium). ^ Salimbene himself did not doubt that, 
for the future, it was the divine purpose that there 
should be no longer an emperor. 

Two contemporaries exhibit to us the position of the 
Germans ; the one, the experienced and observing au- 
thor of a brief anonymous writing ^ of the year 1288, 
the other, Jordanus of Osnabriick, in his book on the 
Roman Empire. * " Within fifty years," said the first, 
" the Roman kingdom, which in the year 1220 was still 
so powerful, has sunk so low as to have lost all consi- 
deration. The Papacy, on the contrary, has mounted 
so high, that kings and peoples, and the whole world 
lying at the feet of the Pope, have greeted him as 
monarch of the world. This can now rise no higher, 
without degenerating into a complete secular domin- 

1 Les Livres du Tresor, ed. Chabaille (Paris, 1863;, p. 93. 

2 CAro \, p. 167, 378. 

3 The Noli'ia Sxculi, published by Karajan, in his work, Zur Gc" 
schichte des Concils von Lyon (Vienna, 1849). 

4 Jordanus, ed. Waitz, Grottingen, 1868. 



356 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 

ion. To sucli an extent has the clergy, in the service 
of the Roman Church, and with the co-operation of the 
Frencli, destroyed the Roman Empire ( Clerici et Gal- 
lici mtnc parte magna Romanum destrnxertcnt wipe- 
riuni). Should they fully succeed in accomplishing 
this work of destruction, such a flood of misfortune 
and ruin will break forth, preceding the Antichrist, 
as the world has not yet experienced. In recompense, 
however, for the shame which the clergy has already 
brought upon the empire, a judgment will soon be in- 
flicted upon them, because they are so deeply infected 
with the poison of Simony." 

Jordanus expressed himself more cautiously : " Since 
the Roman Empire has shared in the great honor of 
constituting the bulwark of the Christian world against 
the Antichrist, who could not appear until that em- 
pire was overthrown, all these forerunners, who as- 
sist in this overthrow, are but preparing the way for 
the Antichrist ; and the popes, chief enemies of the 
Empire, are doing this most of all. The Romans 
and their popes," then adds Jordanus, "had better 
beware, lest by a just judgment of God upon their 
offenses, their authority be taken away from them." 
The same warning was also delivered by him to 
the German princes, so gladly enriching them- 
selves at the expense of the empire. The Cardinal 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 357 

Jacob Colonna, who wrote a preface to this work 
of Jordanus in the year 128 1, addressed Pope 
Martin V., the tireless opponent of the German and 
patron of the French power, expressing his fear that 
if the Roman Church, which had banished its custom- 
ary prayer for the emperor from its Hturgy of the 
mass, has now gone so far as to be able to say. We 
have no king or emperor but the Pope, there would 
break forth a great and bloody persecution of the 
clergy. (Waitz, 41.) 

In still later times, the Belgian chronicler, Dynter, 
addressed a pathetic warning to the German electors, 
that they should earnestly consider what dangers and 
calamities the destruction of the Roman Empire 
would bring upon the world, i This was written in 
the year 1445, just as Germany had shown to the 
world, in the Hussite wars, the spectacle of its pitiable 
impotence, and that its empire w^as now become an 
empty shadow. 

In the thirteenth century, however, in the midst of 
all the ruin of Germany and Italy, the hope of an 
approaching transformation of affairs was still pre- 
served by means of prophecies. Roger Bacon, who, 
with Dante, was the most richly endowed, the 
most many-sided and cultivated spirit of his age, 

1 Dynteri Chronicon, ed. de Ram. (Brussels, 1854), i, 166. 



358 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 

wrote in the year 1267 : "It has been prophesied 
for forty years, and confirmed by many visions, that 
a righteous, true and holy priest is to arise, as re- 
former and purifier of the Church, so deeply involved 
in error. He is to purify the laws of the Church, 
and establish the practice of christian righteousness, 
and by reason of his excellence, the union with the 
Greek Church is to be restored, and the Mongols to 
be converted, when the annihilation of the Saracens 
will follow." 1 All this, fancied Bacon, might within 
the space of a year be accomplished, yea, even in a 
shorter time, if it pleased God and the pope ; and he 
challenged Pope Clement IV. with all earnestness, to 
lay his hand to the work, — the very pope, as Bacon 
must have well known, who, instead of being the leader 
in the building up of a genuine christian righteousness, 
was rather only busied with the development of papal 
absolutism into a purely arbitrary rule, and the con- 
firmation of the tribunal of the Inquisition. But Bacon 
thought that everything was so corrupt, that either 
Antichrist would come, or a pope to purify the Church 
must arise ; and he manifestly thinks of the possibility 
of a great moral and spiritual transformation, to be, as it 
were, accomplished at one stroke. It is striking to 

1 Rogeri Bacon Opera Quxdem Hactenus Inedita, ed. Brewer (Lon- 
don, 1859), p. 87, cf. p. 418. 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 359 



observe, that the men of greatest insight in those days, 
like Roger Bacon and Dante, believed in a sudden and 
complete change of disposition in whole nations and 
periods, and possessed so little understanding of the 
laws of historic development. This is to be explained 
from the astrological delusions which prevailed, and 
which ruled the minds of these men also. The view 
was held that the tone and the ethical tendency of an 
age were controlled by a change in the reciprocal po- 
sition of the stars ; that sudden transitions, accordingly, 
from one extreme to the other, from virtue and piety 
to corruption and sinfulness, and the reverse, were pos- 
sible. Such changes were to be completed in a fatalistic 
way, with unavoidable necessity, while yet, to the indi- 
vidual was guaranteed his personal freedom of will, to 
hold fast his chosen course in the midst of the stream 
of ruin. This influence of the stars was then called 
into the service of prophecy. Such men, it was said, 
as were receptive of astral impressions by virtue of 
their natural temperament, were, for that reason 
adapted to prophecy. They were, so to speak, pre- 
destined by nature to this calling, and might all the 
more surely comprehend the twofold revelation of 
God, the one within them, the other mediated by the 
constellations. ^ 

1 See what Benedict XIV. cites on this from the manuscript of an 
Italian theologian, appealing to Albertus Magnus and Aristotle : 
ubi supra, p. 436, 



36o COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 

Bacon could, it is true, appeal to the fact, that stu- 
pendous religious movements, suddenly bursting forth, 
were not unheard-of events in his own times. Once 
certainly had it happened, that a gigantic revival, ap- 
parently without previous preparation and entirely 
spontaneous, — a spirit of repentance and conversion to 
a new life, — had been manifested. In the midst of the 
partizan discords and animosities by which Italy 
was rent, there were times of weariness, in which they 
tried to shake off the spirit of faction and political 
hatred which oppressed them as with the weight of 
Alps, and poisoned all other relations ; then a spirit of 
reconciliation prevailed. Thus in the year 1260, when 
under the influence of prophecy the first great pil- 
grimage of the Flagellants arose, thousands of peni- 
tents, men and women of every age, scourging them- 
selves and beseeching the mercy of God and 
peace among men, moved on from city to city. 
It was as if great towns had emptied their entire 
population, even twelve or twenty thousand souls, into 
another town. Those banished were allowed to return, 
GhibeUines and Guelphs embraced one another and 
were reconciled ; many criminals were pardoned. It 
was a powerful religious impulse of the nations to help 
themselves ; but the rulers remained unmoved, the 
pope maintained an attitude of indifference, or even of 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 361 

hostility towards the movement, and so the flame of 
enthusiasm, which, well directed and fostered, might 
have led to the salvation of Italy, was allowed to 
become extinguished. 

In the statements of Bacon, we meet for the first 
time the thought, which was afterwards adopted in 
Italy, of a " Papa Angelico." It was the expectation 
laid down by so many subsequent prophets, of a pope 
who was to restore peace and harmony and bring 
back the Church again to the purity and freshness of 
youth. It was the Italian counterpart to the much 
desired and hoped-for German Emperor Frederick. 
After the great intermediate empire, the hopes, desires 
and needs of the German race were concentrated upon 
the thought of a strong and all-powerful emperor, who 
was to re-establish the fallen kingdom, humble the 
grand and despotic papacy, and strip from the 
clergy its boundless and misappropriated riches. 
How long was it believed in Germany that Frederick 
II. was still alive! How many false Fredericks, pre- 
tenders trusting to popular favor, deceived the people ! 
When one of these false Fredericks was burned at 
Wetzlar in the year 1289, the story among the people 
was : " His bones were not found in the fire ; Emperor 
FredeHck was still alive, by the power of God, and is 



362 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 

to banish the priests " ^ As these hopes were all at 
length extinguished, a new prophecy took their place, 
which promised the appearance of a new Emperor 
Frederick. It travelled for more than a century in 
the greatest variety of shapes, and ran like a 
thread through many other prophecies. In the collec- 
tions of such predictions, it was usually found in the 
first rank. It was said to have originated from the 
most illustrious of the prophets, from Joachim him- 
self. Certain it is, that its influence was deep and 
abiding. The very name of Frederick became signifi- 
cant, and whoever among princes and monarchs bore 
it, excited the expectation that he was destined to be- 
come the instrument of a great and fortunate change. 
Earlier, it was a Frederick from the Orient who was 
expected. The natural son of Frederick II., who died 
in 1258, appears to have been called Frederick of An- 
tioch for this reason. Later it was simply Frederick, 
or the third of this name, the Eagle, who was to 
spread his wings from sea to sea, even to the ends 
of the earth. By him, or at least in his time, pope 
and clergy were to be imprisoned, scattered, stripped of 
their wealth or even killed. Even in the confessions, 
which the Catharists of southern France made, in the 

1 Hagen's Oesterreich. Chronik, in Pezii Scnptores Eer. Austr., i., 
1105. 



COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES, 363 



year 1321, before the Inquisition,^ allusion is made 
to the expectation which they cherished, that Frede- 
rick III would arise, extend their Catharist communion, 
their Gnostic and dualistic church, and while protect- 
ing them, violently oppress the clergy and the Church. 

In upper Italy, a prophet of the third Frederick 
excited a bloody religious war. Dolcino, who had 
attained the headship of an order of mendicants mo- 
delled after the Minorites, sent forth from the corner 
in which he had concealed himself, his prophetic let- 
ters, one after the other, in the first years of the four- 
teenth century. Stirred up by the writings of Joa- 
chim, and by kindred ideas relative to the age in 
which he lived, and its connection with the world's his- 
tory, he announced that it was revealed to him, that 
Frederick of Aragon would be called to the dignity of 
emperor, and that there would immediately ensue a 
general slaughter of the entire clergy, and the destruc- 
tion of all religious bodies. Then a holy pope was to be 
raised up, in whose days the apostolic brethren would 
enjoy full freedom, and the whole earth be converted 
to the new and everlasting gospel of the most perfect 
poverty. Dolcino fixed the occurrence of this event so 
near that he very speedily outlived the practical refu- 
tation of his prophecy. He was so slightly perplexed, 

1 In th.e Codex Vaticanus, 97. 



364 COSMOPOLITICAL PROPHECIES. 

however, that in his next prophetic manifesto, he sim- 
ply removed for one year the date of its fulfilment. 
Persecuted, Dolcino with his 1400 followers took the 
sword, seized and fortified a mountain in the territory 
of Vercelli, and a war sprang up, marked by all the atro- 
cities of the times, in which he at last was conquered and 
with his deluded followers came to a horrible end. His 
adherents, widely scattered, still believing firmly in the 
judgment to be visited upon the clergy and his holiness 
the pope by the predestined emperor, fell into the 
power of the Inquisition ; and, fifteen years after the 
death of the prophet, several scores of the followers of 
Dolcino were burned upon the market place at 
Padua. 1 

i Ilistoria Dulcini, cum Additamentc, in Muratori Script. Rer. 
lial., ix, 425. 




VII. The Joachimites, 



We have, in the teachings of Dolcino, the germs and 
fruits of a prophetic system, which, Hke nothing be- 
fore or after it, was developed into a spiritual power, 
deeply penetrating the literature of the Church, and 
for centuries filling the souls of men with hope and 
fear, controlling their representations of the purposes 
of God, and of the things to be expected and accom- 
plished. Joachim, the author of this system, and 
founder of the congregation of monks at Fiore in 
Calabria, was a profound theologian, cultivated by the 
most careful biblical studies, although afterwards (that 
his writings might appear to be the results of a mira- 
culous enlightenment), it was affirmed that he was en- 
tirely destitute of education. ^ Joachim himself 
affirmed, that he was not a prophet, in the strict 
sense ; but that the spirit of understanding had been 
given to him, or, in other words, the gift rightly to 
interpret the prophetic contents of the Old and New 
Testaments, and to construct the course of history, 
the changeful fate of the Church, from the prophecies, 

1 Accepta, ut aiunt, divinitus sapientia, cum fere esset prius illitcr- 
atus : Eadulphi Coggeshali Chron. Angl., in Martene, Coll, Ampl., 
V. 838. 

365 



366 THE yOACHIMITES. 

analogies and types of the Bible. He himself de- 
scribes {Corn, in Apocal. p. 39) how, meditating one 
Easter-night, suddenly.by a divine revelation, the entire 
fulness of the contents of the Apocalypse, and the 
harmony of the Old Testament with the New, were 
made perfectly clear to him. It appeared to him, as 
if a stream of bright light was poured all at once into 
his soul. He could say, accordingly, to the Abbot 
Adam of Persigny, at Rome, that all the mysteries of 
the sacred Scriptures were as clear to him as they had 
formerly been to the biblical prophets themselves. 

Three popes, Lucius HI., Urban HI. (i 185), and 
Clement HI. (1188), advised Joachim not to hide the 
revelations which God had imparted to him, and to 
publish the writings which he had subjected to the 
judgment of the papal chair (the Concordia, the P Sal- 
ter iiim, and the Commentary on the Apocalypse). ^ 
King Richard of England, and English and French 
bishops of high standing, asked counsel of him. ^ The 
report of the appearance of so great a prophet as Joa- 
chim produced during his life (he died in the year 
1202) great excitement even in the remote North, 

1 Jalfe Regesta, 1085. Vita Urbani III., in Muratori Scr. iv, 476. 
Joachim also names these three writings in his Confessions. See 
Gregorii Lauri, Joachim 31agnus Prophela (Naples) p. 166. 

2 Benedict! Abhatis Petrohurgcns., Gesta Regis Uenrici (^London> 
1867;, ii, 151-155. 



THE yOACHIMITES. 367 

and even where his writings were not yet known. His 
contemporaries frequently inscribed his name in their 
chronicles, with the addition : " We must wait to see 
whether his prophecies are confirmed by the result. 
Every thing is still uncertain." And yet very little 
was really known before the year 1220 of the contents 
of his prophetic writings. It had only been noticed 
with astonishment that he had said to the English 
king and his bishops, that the Antichrist whom the 
apostle Paul had described as the man of sin and 
son of perdition, would soon appear upon the papal 
chair; — that he was already born.^ Since the opinions 
of Joachim were not yet known in their full extent, 
this attracted universal attention. It was not known 
that Joachim had discovered more than one Antichrist 
in the history of the Church and in the prophetic 
intimations of the Bible. It was not known that, in 
consequence of the deep corruption of the Church and 
the poisonous influence of the Roman Curia, he natu- 
rally came to the idea that all these evils met at 
Rome, concentrated in a single person and a single 
pope. 

Honorius III. likewise declared afterthe death of the 
abbot, that since Joachim had submitted in writing 

1 Benedict, Petroburg. p. 153. Eoger de Hoveden, ap. Savile, 
B,er. Angl. Scrijpt.^ p. 388. 



368 THE JOACHIMITES. 



all his writings to the judgment of the Apostolic 
chair, and had confessed the faith of the Roman 
Church, it should be announced throughout all Cala- 
bria that the pope regarded him as a good catholic. ^ 
This decree of the pope was especially directed against 
the Cistercians, who had taken much pains to secure 
the condemnation of the man who had separated him- 
self from their order with his congregation, or at least 
to effect the rejection of his writings ; as they had also 
labored to bring about the condemnation made by 
Innocent III. of a statement respecting the Trinity, 
in which Joachim had censured Peter of Lombard. ^ 
Joachim left behind the reputation of being no less a 
holy man than one prophetically illuminated. Nu- 
merous miracles were related of him ; in the churches 
of Calabria a religious ceremony was dedicated to him 
as to other saints ; and the Bollandists introduced 
him into their great work upon the saints. Many 
really cherished the view, that in him, for the first 
time since the days of the Apostles, the christian world 
had received a genuine prophet, and that in his writ- 
ings was first presented the true key to the com- 
prehension of the history of the world and of the 
church. 

1 Lambertini (Benedict XIX.), De Servorum Dei Beatificaiione, ii., 
248. 

2 G-ervaise, Histoire de VAhbe Joachim (Paris, 1T45), ii., 465. 



THE yOACHIMITES. 369 

After the middle of the thirteenth century, other 
writings appeared, hitherto unknown, under the 
name of Joachim, — ^his commentaries on Isaiah and 
Jeremiah. Had these been genuine, the exact fulfilment 
of so many historic prophecies, falling into the period 
from 1202 to 1240, would have presented the most 
wonderful phenomenon in the history of prophecy. 
They were composed, however, by Italian Minorites, 
although entirely in the spirit and method of 
Joachim, By means of these new writings, especially 
the commentary of Jeremiah, which was generally 
accepted with entire confidence as a genuine pro- 
duction of the Calabrian abbot, the doctrines of 
Joachim were first spread abroad through a wider 
circle, and formed a school. It was said that an aged 
abbot of the order of Fiore had entrusted the 
writings of Joachim to the convent of Minorites in 
Pisa, for fear that his own convent would be destroyed 
by the Emperor Frederick. (Salimbene, p. loi.) 
Hence it was that the Minorites became the most 
diligent disseminators of his writings. A contem- 
porary affirms that the prophecies of Joachim came 
to light about the year 1250, when the Cardinal de 
Porto sent them to Germany. ^ The Minorite, Adam 

1 Conrad of Halberstadt in his (imprinted) Latin recasting of the 
work of Eicke von Eepgow. See Mui-atori Aniiquilales Ital., in., p. 
948. 



370 THE JOACHIMITES. 

Marsh, at the same time sent to the Bishop Grosseteste 
of Lincoln fragments from Joachim, which had just 
been brought to England from the continent by a 
Minorite, " in order that he might know whether 
or not the judgment of God was soon to break over 
prelates and clergy, princes and people." ^ In Italy 
Joachimites were found as well among Guelphs 
as Ghibellines. Salimbene mentions many of them. 
Notaries, physicians, judges and literary persons 
regularly assembled at the residence of Hugo de 
Barcola, one of the most honored of the Minorites, 
to listen to his lectures on Joachim. A professor 
of theology, Rudolph of Saxony, abandoned 
scholasticism in order to devote himself entirely to 
this theology of prophecy. Now, however, the entire 
structure of Joachimism was powerfully shaken by 
events which did not at all correspond with the 
prophetical reckoning. On the one hand, the death 
of the Emperor Frederick II., to whose government 
so significant a position had been assigned in this 
system, occurred in the year 1250, and brought about 
the entire triumph of the Papacy over the empire — 
in total opposition to the prophecy of Joachim, who 
had assigned a much longer life to the Emperor — 

1 Ada3 de Marisco Epistolse, p. 147, in the Monumenta Franciscana^ 
ed. Brewer. 



THE JOACHIMITES. 371 

seventy or seventy-two years, and at the same time 
had announced to the Church, i.e.^ according to the 
Itahan and Guelph usage, to the Papacy, a 
Babylonian captivity of seventy years ; in other 
words, an oppression by the imperial authority for a 
corresponding number of years. Ten years later oc- 
curred another great disappointment. According to 
the system of Joachim, the second period of the world's 
history, that of the Son, was to endure twelve hundred 
and sixty years. The second epoch, accordingly, 
that of the Holy Ghost, would begin in the year 
1260, and in conjunction therewith a great transforma- 
tion and purification of the Church. By means of 
their preaching, the Joachimites, belonging to the 
popular and influential order of the Minorites, had 
excited in Italy great expectations among the people, 
and a religious awakening, which manifested itself 
in the flagellant pilgrimages of that year. It went, 
however, no farther. The world in general followed 
its ordinary course. The Curia and the hierarchy 
maintained an attitude of indifference or hostility 
towards the movement which had seized upon the 
people. The Minorites could not long remain blind 
to the conviction that not the slightest inclination to 
reform had been aroused in the leading circles of the 
Church. On the contrary, that evil condition of things. 



372 THE yOACHIMITES. 

which appeared to them so intolerable, and to be the 
impelling cause of severe and impending judgments, 
was evidently ever on the increase. " At this time," 
•said Salimbene, "after the experience of the period 
between 1250 and 1260, I have entirely abandoned 
the teachings of Joachim, and I will henceforth beheve 
only what I see." 1 He did not, however, remain 
steadfast in his determination ; for when in his later 
years (about 1284) he wrote his chronicles, he had 
again become a believing follower of Joachim. Hugo 
had said to him that only the carnally-minded 
rejected the prophecies of Joachim, because he 
announced disagreeable things, many and severe 
sufferings and trials. Joachim himself had in fact 
declared his computations to be uncertain, and 
declined to fix a definite period for the fulfilment of 
his prophecies. His followers, however, were ready 
with expedients. Some said the third epoch, that 
of the Holy Ghost, had certainly begun with the 
year 1260, that the Flagellant pilgrimages were the 
token of its beginning, and that the characteristic of 
this period, the power and activity of monastic 
orders, was actually present. Others, like Ubertino of 
Casale, said that Joachim had rightly announced the 

1 Dimisi totaliter istam doctrinam, et dispono non credere, nisi 
qua3 videro. Salimbene, p. 131. 



THE JOACHIMITES, 373* 



year of the second epoch (1260), but it must, however, 
be reckoned from the resurrection, not from the birth 
of Christ ; so that the period of the Holy Spirit ^ 
would begin in the year 1293. In fact, the honor 
and the prophetic authority of Joachim were 
cultivated in the heart of every genuine Minorite ; 
for the prophet had not only declared the high 
ecclesiastical importance and dignity of the order, 
but had also announced that the Dominicans would 
be visited with the judgments threatening the rest of 
the clergy, while the Minorites were to happily 
continue until the end of the world. (Salimbene, p. 
338.) Even John of Parma, the universally respected 
General of the Order, was obliged, after his retirement 
from the Joachimites, to submit himself to a severe 
examination ; and his successor and judge. Saint 
Bonaventura, threatened to damn him as heretic, so 
offensive were his opinions about the estate and 
future prospects of the Church. He was only saved 
by the interposition of the pope. 2 This was all the 

1 The formula repeatedly used by Salimbene : in tertio statu 
operabitur Spiritus Sanctus in religiosis. Salimbene, p. 123, 240. 

2 Affo, Vita del h. Giovanni di Parma (Parma, 1T77), p. 125. Aifo 

■will not allow without proof that Bonaventura was present at this 

trial ; because at that time he may have been away from Italy. 

Besides, John of Parma was canonized by Pius VI., and a festival 

dedicated to him was introduced into the Order. 
32 



374 JOACHIMITES, 



more strange, since Bonaventura, as is evident from 
his commentary on the Apocalypse, held the same 
views with his predecessors concerning the corruption 
of the Church, and the chief cause of it, that is, the 
Roman Curia polluted by simony. 
" A general survey of the system of Joachim shows 
us, certainly, the significant germs which it contains, if 
we take into view the prevailing form of doctrine, and 
the hierarchical system of the times. The history 
of the human race, according to Joachim and his 
school, runs in three great epochs : I. That of the 
Father (the Ante-Christian period, or, after the type 
of the three chief apostles, the Petrine period). II. 
That of the Son, or the Pauline period (from Christ to 
the year 1260). III. That of the Holy Ghost, or the 
Johannean period. The two latter periods, however, 
should not be so sharply separated from one another ; 
for the one passes over into the other by a silent, 
gradual and imperceptible transition ; so that the 
period from 1200 to 1260 is as much the end of the 
second, as the beginning of the third period. 

The Church has become, chiefly through the ruinous 
influence of the popes, altogether sensual, a house of 
prostitution, a den of robbers. Nevertheless, God has 
left in her a seed of blessing and of grace. The 
clergy has become despised for its vices ; the pre- 



THE JOACHIMITES. 375 

lates are adulterers and hirelings ; the cardinals and 
papal legates, the avaricious plunderers of the church, 
are sucking away its Hfe. Thus is the christian 
people misled and spoiled by its shepherds. Whoever 
goes to Rome on any mission falls at once among 
thieves — the cardinals, notaries, &c. Rome, the city 
destitute of all christian discipline, is the fountain of 
all the abominations of Christendom, and upon her 
must first fall the judgment of God. The chief 
instruments of the divine retribution were, besides 
unbelievers, the Saracens, the Germans, the new 
Chaldeans, and the Roman Empire, with the emperor. 
France, the new Egypt, the broken reed upon which 
the papacy leaned, and which pierced its hand 
through, must be conquered, and its power broken by 
the Germans, although it is to subjugate the neighbor- 
ing countries around. For the Italians, who have so 
deeply sinned, the German power is to be a scourge. 
In the bitter conflict between the Empire and the 
Papacy, both these mighty powers will fall in ruin. 
The pope will seek to destroy the bounds of the 
empire, by arousing the barbarian nations against it, 
and by arbitrary interference in the distribution of 
the highest dignities. 

The emperor, however, is to strip the pope of all 
temporal dominion, and of all his possessions. Then 



376 THE JOACHIMITES, 



IS to be the time of the conversion of the nations 
and of the glorification of the true Church. Now 
it will come to be understood, that the perverse 
striving of the Church after an unbecoming authority, 
can only lead to a continually increasing servitude. 
After the empire has done its work as an instrument 
of punishment, the avenging judgments will be com- 
pleted by the Saracens (the beast out of the sea), and 
by ten kings from the East. The Saracens are then 
to be annihilated by the Tartars, coming from the 
North. The instrument which God is to employ for 
purifying the corrupted Church, and for the bringing 
in of the great Sabbath, or the epoch of the Holy 
Ghost, will be an Order ^ of contemplative Eremites, 
who, by many years of study completed in silent 
retirement, ripened and illuminated by prayerful 
reflection, are to be prepared to announce the true 
gospel of humanity. To this order also will that 
preacher belong, who, according to the statement of 
Joachim, either alone or with associates, is to be sent 
from God as a teacher of love for heavenly things, and 

1 In most passages of the genuine writings of JoacMm, only one 
Order is spoken of, a black-robed society of Eremites. In a few- 
passages, however, he speaks also of two Orders, of which the one 
was to furnish martyrs for the truth, and the other to devote itself 
to the contest with heretics. In the commentaries on Jeremiah 
and Isaiah, two new orders of mendicants, the Minorites and the 
Dominicans, are distinctly predicted. (Comm. in Apocal. p. 142.) 



THE yOACHIMITES. ^77 

of contempt for earthly things. ( Comm. in Apocal., 
p. 137) These men, now, will also overthrow the 
chairs of the carnal teachers, of the Italian " legists," 
and " decretists," of those flatterers (especially from 
Bologna, the valley of Tophet) who stimulate the 
avarice and ambition of ecclesiastical princes by their 
nefarious doctrines. At last, when the great Sabbath of 
rest for the christian nations begins, under the 
guidance of true shepherds, and the contemplative 
Church celebrates its triumph, then will also come the 
conversion of the Jews and unbelievers, and even of the 
Tartars themselves. With reference to the Antichrist, 
who is meantime to appear, there are contradictory 
statements in the writings of Joachim, which are 
however capable of reconciliation since he adopted 
the opinion that there are to be many Antichrists, 
partly in succession, partly contemporaneously, and 
that the nearer the end of the world's history so much 
the more would they be multiplied. 

Such then are the leading features of the prophetic 
picture of the history of the world, which, sketched 
by Joachim and completed in sympathy with him 
(the commentary on Isaiah was not composed until 
about the year 1266), controlled directly or indi- 
rectly, for centuries, the presentiments and thoughts 
of mankind respecting the future, especially in Italy, 



37S THE yOACHIMITES, 



The views respecting the German people and 
empire, which are here brought to hght, are entirely 
those of the party of the Guelphs, who saw in the 
Germans only the warlike and plundering oppressors 
of conquered nations. They refused to recognize the 
higher calling of the Empire as it was even then 
perceived by Dante. "The kingdom of the Germans," 
it is said in the commentary on Jeremiah, "has been 
for us hard and oppressive ; the Lord must needs 
annihilate it with the sword of his wrath, that all kings 
may tremble before the uproar of its overthrow." We 
recognize in such and similar expressions the language 
of the Neapolitan Minorites. Of the leading thoughts 
and events, which the authors of these writings 
imagined that they beheld in their prophetic mirrors, 
but very little was ever realized. 

Of the two powers which were to destroy each 
other — the Papacy and the Empire, — the first, the 
Roman Curia, had just then obtained the most 
complete victory over the German Empire, which 
lay at last helpless at its feet. The Papal See, 
however, sustained no loss either of possessions or of 
authority from the Germans and their emperors, at 
least not in the succeeding centuries, and never 
through an emperor. When, however, in the year 
1 303, the day of Anagni came, and shortly afterwards 



THE yOACHIMITES. 379 

the pontificate of Clement V., the Joachimites might 
well claim the fulfilment of the prophecy of their 
master, that France was the reed which should pierce 
right through the hand of the pope who leaned upon it. 
There exists, however, a noticeable difference of tone 
and of judgment, which was not observed by con- 
temporaries, between the genuine writings of Joachim 
and the commentary on Jeremiah and Isaiah 
attributed to him, especially with reference to the 
Papacy. Between the former and the latter writings 
a half century had intervened, during which the 
Papacy advanced with gigantic strides toward its 
goal, the dominion of the world. The corruption 
proceeding from the Curia and pervading all orders 
and institutions of the Church, had increased in a 
corresponding degree. Joachim had, so to say, 
written in the interest, and under the very eyes 
of the popes. The Minorites, however, who com- 
posed the commentaries on Jeremiah and Isaiah, and 
who used the name of Joachim to conceal their own, 
and were moreover " Spirituals," and professors of the 
new doctrine of poverty, inclined rather to unsparing 
and severe condemnation of the popes and their 
avaricious and luxurious courts. Joachim, on the 
contrary, although recognizing in many passages the 
Roman Curia as the source of corruption, yet always 



380 THE JOACHIMITES, 

spoke of the Papal Chair in terms of the highest 
reverence. 

It was not in Italy, not by the popes, as might 
have been expected, but in France, and by French 
theologians and bishops, that the prophecies of 
Joachim were first attacked, and characterized as 
dangerous errors, not to be tolerated in the Church. 
In Provence the doctrine of Joachim had already 
produced a literature of its own, when, in the year 
1260, a synod at Aries imagined itself called upon 
solemnly to condemn the doctrine of the three 
epochs of the Church, and the new outpouring of the 
Holy Spirit. (Harduin, Coll. Concil., vii., 512.) This, 
said the bishop^, would have been done earlier, had 
not until very recently the works of Joachim, 
especially the Concordiay lain hidden and unobserved 
in several cloisters. Certainly, in any other case, they 
said, the Papal Chair would have condemned and 
branded, not only the writings of Gheiardino, but 
Joachim himself, the real source. 

Somewhat earlier, the Parisian theologian, William 
Saint-Arnour, wrote in opposition to the writings of 
Joachim, without, however, knowing the later works, 
the commentaries on Jeremiah and Isaiah. William 
discovered that all the signs of the coming Antichrist 
were already present ; the Roman kingdom with 



THE JOACHIMITES, 381 

Frederick II. had come to an end, and the gift of 
miracles had been taken away from the Church. 
Consequently, not at all Joachim's period of the 
Holy Ghost, but the very opposite, was to be 
expected. ^ He refused to know anything about a 
comforting future for humanity and the Church, and 
it is very characteristic of the times, that the Rector 
of the first university of the world rejected the pro- 
phecies of Joachim, for the very reason that they 
promised the Church and the Christian world a long 
season of peace and prosperity, and a prosperous old 
age, continuing through many centuries. That dark 
sketch which he drew, of the sad condition of the 
Church in its deep degradation, was not so different 
from the pictures of Joachim, apart from the mission 
of the new mendicant orders, which he regarded 
as injurious in their influence; but both drew from 
the same facts opposite conclusions. The followers 
of Joachim, said : Unless we magnify the brilliant 
future of a purified and well ordered Church, we must 
be wrong concerning the Church itself, and despair 
of its divine foundation and mission. William 
assumed, on the contrary, that the days of a Church, 

1 This work is not by the Bishop Oresme de Lisieux, under 
whose name it is given in Martene Ampliss. Coll. ix., 1273, sq. ; 
"but by William of St. Amour, as the author by the Mistoire LiUeraire 
de la France, xxi,, 470, has stated. 



382 THE yOACHIMITES. 



well pleasing to God and still true to its orlg-inal 
destiny and constitution, had long passed by> and 
that there is no promise of a better future. The 
Church has now to look for nothing else but the 
advent of its great adversary. 

In the same year in which both the new records of 
the more fully developed doctrine of Joachim, — the 
two commentaries on the prophets — appeared, the 
Minorite, Gherardino of Borgo-San-Donnino, united 
them in one work, with three genuine writings of the 
Abbot of Fiore, under the title of the " Everlasting 
Gospel," and added to them an Introduction, which 
though conceived in the spirit of Joachim, sounded to 
the majority of the party like a lamentable perversion 
of the genuine doctrine. Forbearing as the Papal 
Chair had hitherto showed itself towards the teach- 
ings of Joachim, yet an anathema was now unavoid- 
able. It was accordingly delivered in the year 1255, 
by a commission of cardinals, at Anagni, on the 
complaint of the Bishop of Akkon, who came for that 
purpose from France. Gherardino had announced 
in his IntroductoriuSy the advent, six years later, in 
1260, of the third epoch of the world's history, the 
Era of the Holy Ghost. With this, the New 
Testament, the epoch and ceconomy of the Son, was to 
be fully closed, abrogated and made void, as that of 



THE JOACHIMITES. 383 

the first period, or of the Old Testament, had been 
abrogated by the New. For, he added, 110 one has 
been brought to perfection by the Gospel of Christ. 
Under the guidance of the Order of Minorites, now 
developed in full proportions, all figures and riddles 
will vanish in the sunlight of the new Church of the 
Holy Spirit. As in the beginning of the new 
covenant there shone three persons, Zacharias, John 
the Baptist, and the man Jesus ; so in the third, the 
epoch of the Spirit, the three columns of the structure 
were to be Joachim, Dominic, and Francis.^ 

The fate of Gherardino was fearful. He would not 
recant, and was condemned to a life-long imprison- 
ment, in which, after eighteen years, he died. No 
one any longer defended the Introductorius^ which 
after six years was refuted by facts. 

But the doctrine and prophecies of Joachim were 
continuously upheld in the Order of the Minorites, 
and two distinguished men, Peter John D'Olive and 
Ubertino of Casale, gave it a new impulse. Attached 
to them was the influential party of the Spirituals, as 
that class of men was named, in the phrase of 
Joachim, who desired to retain entire poverty, in the 
sen^e of the founder of the order. The authority of 

1 Duplessis d'Argentre, in his Collectio Judiciorum, i., 163, gives 
the passages from the Introductorius. 



384 THE yOACHIMITES. 

Joachim as a prophet remained undiminished, only it 
was discovered that his dates rested upon pure 
conjectures, and were therefore not to be strictly- 
taken ; although the number 1260, according to the 
theory of the apocalyptic days taken as years, was 
always retained as indicating the great turning point. 

The entire duration of the world and the Church 
was now divided into seven periods, in each of which 
a great and severe contest was to occur. The fifth 
period, extending into the thirteenth century, was the 
time of the complete corruption of the Church, in 
which the Roman Chair, risen to the highest degree of 
power, also contributed most to the general corruption. 
With the sixth period, the third great era, that of the 
Holy Ghost, had begun. In reality it began with the 
appearance of Saint Francis, a hundred years before ; 
but it was then still flooded with the dregs of the fifth 
period. The carnal Church, however, with its false 
popes, was ripening for judgment, and the time was 
not far distant in which the Spii'ituals should con- 
quer, and the spiritual Church should manifest itself, 
and rule, freed from the poison of temporal possessions. 
Then the Church was to have entire leisure and 
complete power, anc endure long enough to bring 
about the conversion of the Jews as well as of the 



THE yOACHIMITES. 385 



whole heathen world. D'Olive'si commentary on 
the Apocalypse was the favourite book of the 
Spirituals and of their numerous adherents, especially 
in Italy, and southern France ; they were continual- 
ly upheld by these prophecies, expecting from year 
to year the victory and the public manifestation of 
the Church of the Holy Ghost. 

As they had declined to recognize any pope since 
John XXI L, the popes visited them with that fear- 
ful persecution in which a hundred and fourteen 
Spirituals were burned at the stake, and many 
more died in severe imprisonment. The bones of 
D'Olive were dug up and burned, and his writings 
v/ere prohibited, until Sextus IV., himself a Minorite, 
ordered a new investigation, and declared them 
orthodox, since, as was said, the passages which 
had been regarded as objectionable could be inter- 
preted in a good sense. ^ 

It cannot be denied that these victims of the papal 

1 He was styled the Doctor Columhtnus, since his party chose the 
dove as its symbol. The commentary is still unprinted, but the 
articles presented to a papal commission under John XXI F., were 
taken from it, and are sufficient to make us acquainted with his 
views. XJbertino's chief work was composed in the year 1305, Arbor 
Vilse Crucifixse (Venice, 1484) ; here he declares Boniface VIII. and 
Clement V. to be false popes. 

2 Flam. Annibali de Latera, Supplem. ad Bullar. Francis. (Rome, 
1778;, p. 52. 



386 THE yOACHIMITES, 



dogmatic tribunal led a pure and austere life, corres- 
ponding with the rule of their founder. So much 
the deeper, then, was the aversion aroused against 
Rome and the Curia, who, according to the judg- 
ment of the people, had executed the men that were 
the very flower of the Catholic Church. It had 
already been said, in the commentary on Jeremiah 
attributed to Joachim: "As she (the Curia) had 
murdered, so should she also be murdered," and the 
prophecies of the succeeding period had a continually 
increasing anti-papal coloring. And so sprung up 
the fearful thought, that the Papal Chair might have 
been for a time the seat of the Antichrist, or yet 
should be. 

For the impression was very deep which Boniface 
VIII. by his entire bearing made upon his con- 
temporaries ; by his audacious announcement of the 
dogma of the papal supremacy over the world, by his 
tyranny based on fear and terror, and by his undis- 
guised immorality. The astonishment and dismay of 
religiously-disposed persons at the appearance of this 
" new Lucifer " in the Papal Chair was portrayed in 
glowing words by the distinguished poet of the Order 
of Minorites, Jacopone of Todi. ^ The view of the 

1 This is found in the oldest editions of his poem, but has been 
left out in the later ones. Yet Tosti has reprinted it in his Sioria di 
Bonifacio VIII., Monte Cassino, 1848, i., 286. 



THE yOACHIMITES, 387 

Joachimite?;, that the chair of St. Peter should be for 
a considerable period the spoil of an adversary of 
Christ, who was to bear all the marks foretold of the 
Antichrist, came to appear more probable in the eyes 
of many persons. 

It was still more easily imagined that such "a Man 
of Sin, and Son of Perdition" was actually sitting in 
the temple of God and adorned with the papal tiara, 
when, in the year 1 3 10, Pope Clement V. instituted a 
public process against his predecessor, Boniface, now 
seven years dead, which was continued over a year; and 
when a whole series of men of the highest standing, 
prelates, abbots, counts and other noblemen, came 
forth as eye-witnesses to convict this pope of unbelief, 
of heresy, of the utter disregard of all morality, men 
of whom Clement himself testified, when he rejected 
the suit, that they were in the highest degree 
trustworthy, and had only been moved to their 
declarations by zeal for the Catholic Church. 

The greatest Italian of his time, Dante, who^ 

although in a way peculiar to himself, was nevertheless 

a Joachimite, gave utterance to the words (Paradise, 

27, 22-24) • 

** He who usurps upon the earth my place. 
My place, my place, which vacant has become. 
Before the presence of the Son of God." i 

1 Longfellow's translation. 



388 THE JOACHIMITES. 

The poet, however, did not, Hke the Spirituals 
or FraticeUi, infer from this withdrawal of God from 
the Papal Chair, that all done on earth by such a 
usurper was void and invalid. On the contrary, 
Boniface VIII. was to him the regular representative 
of Christ upon earth, but in heaven a usurper, as is 
proved by Dante's renowned expression concerning 
the seizure at Anagni.^ 

The expectations of the Joachimite Spirituals, at 
the beginning of the fourteenth century, embraced, 
accordingly, the following points: (i) A general, severe 
and bloody judgment upon the Church, which had 
become altogether carnal, in which only few good 
persons could be found, like a few grains of gold in 
a great heap of sand. (2) A pope given to simony (the 
so called mystical Antichrist), who, a living pattern 
and picture of the abominations of the Church, claimed 
for himself divine attributes, and received divine 
honors. (3) A pouring forth of the Holy Ghost 
upon the SpiritiLals, to rally them for the conflict 
with the great and last Antichrist. Such were the 
events which numberless adherents of the same 

1 [The seizure and imprisonment of Boniface VIII, by the troops 
of Philip the Fair at Anagni (Alagna). See Dante's Purgatory, xx , 87. 
« I see the flower-de-luce Alagna enter, 
And Christ in his own Vicar captive made." H. B. S.] 



THE JOACHIMITES, 389 

party of Minorites looked forward to at that time 
and long afterwards in Italy and Southern France. 

Another prophecy circulated contemporaneously 
with that of Joachim, and afterwards, gave much occa- 
sion for reflection, and was firmly trusted, in the pas- 
sages which could be understood. As the legend says, 
it was received from the hands of an angel in 1 192 by 
Cyril, a Greek from Constantinople (a Carmelite, and 
General of the Order), and it was written upon two silver 
tables. This prophecy of Cyril, in language designedly 
ambiguous, and for the most part hardly intelligible, 
Vvith many foreign words and bombastic flourishes, ^ 
is one of the numerous fictions of the order of 
Carmelites ; for which reason it is frequently, though 
in contradictory senses, elucidated by members of 
this Order. 2 It starts from the year 1254, and first 
announces the conflicts between the houses of Anjou 
and Aragon, about Naples and Sicily. Then the fall 
of the Church and of the Roman Chair, the severe 
burden of the sins of the degenerated clergy and the 

1 Ex. gr. To express the idea that the Holy Ghost has departed 
from the church, it is said : " Evolavit palumba nidificans in coronaP 
The mendicant monks are called Pocotrophitoe (i.e. : Ftochoiro- 
phitoe), etc. 

2 Divinum Oraculum, S. Cyrillo Carmelitee solanni legatione 
Angcli missum, cui adj. Commentarius Philippi a Trinitati (Lyons^ 
1663). The other commentaries are in the Bibliotheca CarmeiUana 
of Cosmasde Villiers (Aurelian. 1752. i., 358). 



390 THE yOACHIMITES. 

clerical orders, together with the judgments impend- 
ing upon them, are portrayed. The Imperial Eagle is 
exhorted to " awake, spread out thy wings, hew down 
with thy beak." The stress of the whole seems to 
lie in the last chapter, where an admonitory sermon is 
preached to the three corrupt orders, the Minorites, 
the Dominicans, and Carmelites ; and the impositions 
of the mendicant monks, and their illicit ways of 
acquiring property, are portrayed. 

The author himself has supplied a key, though it is 
a very inadequate one, for the solution of his riddles ; 
for he has foisted upon the Abbot Joachim an interpre- 
tation of the prophecy, with the fiction that Cyril sent 
to him in Calabria this prophecy from the East, and 
asked him to interpret it. The text is so obscure, 
that with a little fancy it can be made to apply to 
every conceivable event, and therefore it long con- 
tinued in high esteem. Rienzo believed that in it 
his mission was clearly outlined ; and Telesphorus 
seized upon it for other ends, and made it a part of the 
basis of his prophetic scheme. 

The famous physician, Arnold of Villanova, held 
this prophecy of Cyril in so high esteem, that he 
maintained in his writings that it was more precious 
than all the books of the Bible ; ^ he probably meant, 

1 See the Censura of his -wiitings by a tribuual of the Inquisition 



THE JOACHIMITES. 391 

that it must be placed higher than these, since it was 
Written upon a tablet by the hands of angels, while 
the books of the Bible came only from men. Arnold 
was, besides, a zealous Joachimite, one of the Spiritit- 
als, and altogether too bold a prophet. It seemed 
to him that tlie whole Western Church was already 
completely ruined, beyond redemption, by the excess 
of its sins ; and so he thought that everything must 
rush quickly to perdition ; and therefore (about 1297), 
he put the coming of the last great Antichrist in the 
year 13 16, and the end of the world in 1335. His 
positions were afterwards condemned by a tribunal of 
the Inquisition in Spain. 

Spiritual corporations, like the Minorites and the 
Dominicans, that attain great power in the world, 
when they come to the height of their importance 
naturally imagine that their history must have been 
foretold by divine appointment. The Minorites had 
taken good care that, in the Joachimite writings, 
there should be found a very distinct prediction 
declaring that two Orders were to spring up, one out 
of Umbria (Assisi), and the other in Spain, brilliant 
stars for the preaching of the Gospel. ^ Joachim had 

at TaiTagona, 1316, in Yillanueva, Viage Literario a les Iglesias de 
Esp na, xix, 32 J . 

1 Compare Gregorius dc Lauro, Joachimi Mirabil. Veriias defensa 
p. 170, 



392 THE JOACHIMITES. 

even depicted the garbs which were to be worn by 
these two fraternities, in a painting of the cloister of 
Fiore, and admonished his monks, that when men 
came to them thus clad, they were to be welcomed 
with friendliness and reverence. ^ By this means the 
Joachimites received new support in spite of the 
unfavorable judgment of the great Dominican theolo- 
gian, Thomas of Aquinas, about Joachim himself; for 
Thomas would only let him pass as a well-meaning 
man who had foretold some truths by happy con- 
jecture, although in other things he was deluded. 
(Thomas in lib. iv. Sentent. dist. 439, i, art. 3.) 

1 Gerardus de Fracheto, Vita Frairum^ p. 7, ed. Duacen. 



VIII. The Prophetic Spirit from the Fourteenth 
Century to the Beginning of the Reformation. 



The silver tables of Cyril exercised no small 
influence upon the circle of ideas of the Roman 
tribune, Cola di Rienzo, who had been educated by 
the Spiritualists, and Fraticelli, living as hermits in 
the Apennines. The tables of stone were given to 
Moses on Sinai," wrote Cola to the Emperor Charles 
IV., " and so these silver tables were delivered to 
Cyril on Carmel," ^ and he must believe these pro- 
phecies, since Dominicans, Franciscans and the 
present pope were so plainly designated therein. So, 
too. Merlin and Joachim, as well as Cyril, had told 
beforehand of the present persecution of the poor 
Eremites by the pope and his inquisitors. 

In Rienzo were united, in fact, the brooding spirit 
of the fanatical Joachimites with political insight and 
a gift of domination which bordered on genius. Like 
all the Joachimites he firmly believed in the near 
approach of the third epoch, the Church of the Holy 
Ghost. We find in him already the idea of a future 

1 Papencordt, Cola di Rienzo und seine ZeiL (1841), s., 228. 

393 



394 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

holy pope, accustomed to the poverty of the Gospel, 
the "Papa AngeHcus," as he was soon afterwards 
called, — another Celestine, not like him abdicating, but 
supported by a pious emperor, accomplishing the 
renovation of the Church and the purification of the 
clergy. At the same time, however, Rienzo understood 
how to regulate Rome as a republic, and rule it almost 
hke a dictator ; and he strove to unite dissevered 
Italy into a confederation under the leading of Rome. 
Yet, in this son of an inn-keeper on the Tiber, the 
fanatic and the visionary were stronger than the 
statesman. Even after his first fall, when imprisoned 
by the Emperor Charles, he firmly maintained the 
belief that Cyril had predicted his sufferings (Pa- 
pencordt, p. 241), and that he was still to be the 
chosen instrument of God, through whom, at the 
approaching great regeneration of the Church, should 
be accomplished the political task of raising up the 
fallen Roman Empire, and the restoration of united 
Ital)^ to Rome its capital. His views were fun- 
damentally the same with those of the Spirittcalists 
or Fraticelli, who at that time, and long afterwards, as 
soon as they could be got hold of, were sentenced to 
death at the stake. He too was accused of heresy, 
3^et no sentence of death was passed upon him at 
Avignon, at least none was carried into execution. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 395 



Later, ruling in Rome for the second time, and now- 
sent there by the pope himself, he ended his life as 
a tyrant" by the hands of the Roman populace. 
It can hardly be doubted that the classically educated 
Petrarch, who joyfully greeted Rienzo as the saviour 
of Italy, also shared the tribune's prophetic faith. 
Only, as he had lived so long in Avignon, and there 
seen the corruption of the Papal Curia and the 
degradation of the Church by public simony, he was 
more likely to look for a great and prolonged judg- 
ment, than to indulge the assured hope of a 
simultaneous political and ecclesiastical regeneration 
with which Rienzo was filled. In a sonnet^ that became 
famous, he declares that Rome and the Roman Chair 

1 L'avaraBaLilonia, etc, Rirmdi Petrarca, ed. Carrer (Padua, 1837), 
ii , 434. [Sonnet C Y I., Macgregor's translation, in The Sonnets, 
Triumphs, and Gther Foenn of Petrarch. London, 1849 : 
"'Covetous Babylon of wrath divine 
By its worst crimes has drain'd the full cup now, 
And for its future gods to whom to bow 
INot Power nor Wisdom ta'en, but Love and Wine, 
Though hoping reason, I consume and pine, 
Yet shall her crown deck some new Soldan's broWj 
Who shall again build up, and we avow 
One faith in God, in Rome one head and shrine. 
Her idols shall be sbatter'd, in the dust 
Her proud towers, enemies of Heaven, be hurl'di, 
Her wardens into flames and exile thrust. 
Fair souls and friends of virtue shall the world 
Possess in peace ; and we shall see it made 
AH gold, and fully its old works display'd." H. B, S.] 



396 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC, 

will at some future time (not so soon as he could wish, 
he says) be swallowed up by a Mohammedan empire, 
whose monarch will reside in Bagdad ; ^ then will its 
proud towers be consumed, and its idols be dashed 
in pieces upon the ground ; but then too will begin a 
golden age : he means the age of the Holy Ghost pro- 
phesied by Joachim. 

The peculiar prophetic spirit of that period, a 
mixture of the Joachimite and Minorite Spiritualism^ 
was incorporated in the person of the unfortunate 
Franciscan, Jean de la Rochetaillade ; but his visions 
brought him into a prison where Pope Innocent VI. 
thought he w^ould be harmless. Like most of the 
seers of the later centuries he did not claim to be an 
actual prophet, but only an enlightened investigator, 
to whom the Holy Ghost had disclosed the meaning, 
first of the Apocalypse, and then of the prophecies of 
Merlin and Joachim. Froissart, who upon the whole 
judges him very favorably, describes him as a pious 
and spiritually-minded priest, and Petrarch probably 
derived from the visions of this man his anticipation 

1 Petrarch uses the word " Baldacco." Italian commentators do 
not seem to have knoAvn that thi§ means Bagdad, which at that 
time was reputed to be the chief city of the whole new Christian 
world, the Eome of heathendom. Thus Baldwin of Ninove says in 
his Corpus Chronicor. Flandrise. ed. Smets, ii., 713: Haec civitas 
Bandas (Bagdad; est caput totius Paganismi, sicut Koma Chris, 
tianismi." 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 39; 

of the spread of the Mohammedan dominion over 
Western Europe, or at least over Italy. Jean de la 
Rochetaillade felt that he was strongest where 
Joachim had shown himself weak, that is, in exact 
dates about the immediate future ; and he compressed 
into the narrow period of a few years, from 1356 to 
1370, a wonderful series of extraordinary com- 
plications, decisive catastrophes and sudden re- 
volutions. In a few months there were to be changes 
that demanded centuries, according to ordinary 
historical experience. To him, as a genuine Minorite 
Spiritualist, the observance or transgression of the 
strict rule of poverty enjoined by his Order is the 
very heart of the whole history of the world. ^ Ac- 
cording to his fancy, the transgressors of this strict 
rule of poverty are the true cause of all the calamities 
and maledictions with which the race is now visited. 
The salvation of the world and of the Church can 
only come from two " poor rope-wearers" {Cordelarii, 
Franciscans), one of whom is to be pope, the other 
a cardinal ; though such severe and destructive 
conflicts are to precede that the whole Church would 
be annihilated by them, were this at all possible. And 

1 He says literally in his Prophetic Commentary : Transgrcssores 

ordinis fratrum minorum sunt in causa, quod omnes prafataj 

tribulationes infundentur in orbem." Johann de Rupcscissa, Liher 

inscriptus: Vade mecum in iribulationCj in Brown, Fasciculus, ii., 403. 
34 



398 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

then, before the year 1370, the universal " restoration" 
will begin, the whole world will be converted, gathered 
into one Church and cordially submit to the dominion 
of the pope. The monk put the time of his pro- 
phecies so near at hand that people were soon 
undeceived, and the court at Avignon thought itself 
justified in keeping in prison until his death a 
prophet proved to be false. Froissart reports from 
hearsay, that many of his prophecies were fulfilled. 

Two prophetic women, who flourished only a short 
time apart in the latter half of the fourteenth century, 
were gr eatly reverenced in life and death. One of 
these, Catharine of Siena, was and remained an 
authority chiefly for the Italians, while the other, 
Brigitta (of Sweden), was honored in the whole of 
Western Christendom as a divinely illuminated seer, 
and was diligently read. St. Brigitta became in some 
measure, for her own and the subsequent times, what 
Joachim had been before ; and in fact from the close 
of the fourteenth century, Brigitta and Joachim were 
usually named together as the two leading prophetic 
authorities. The visions and revelations which she 
left behind were examined and sanctioned by popes 
and councils, and defended by famous theologians, 
like Torrecremata. But it remains a striking circum- 
stance that these writings, which are full of solemn 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 399 

monitions about the prevailing corruptions of the 
Church, should have been so highly honored by the 
leaders and spokesmen of the Church itself, that is by 
the very persons who were doing nothing to remedy 
the evils that were denounced. These writings 
contain the severest complaints against the popes ; the 
Roman Curia is painted in black colors, its general 
corruption, its simony and its traffic in sacred things 
are condemned ; repulsive pictures are presented of 
the degeneracy of the clergy, and of the great 
spiritual orders : and Brigitta puts all these charges 
into the mouth of God himself. And yet the Roman 
See caused Joachim to be reverenced as a saint ; and 
it canonized not only Brigitta, but also Bonaventura, 
who in pithy and cutting words designated the Curia 
as a wanton clad in scarlet, and Vincens Ferrer, who, 
fifty years after Brigitta, painted the ecclesiastical 
decay and corruptions in yet darker colors. 

These prophets pointed out usually as in the dis- 
tance, but sometimes as near at hand, a comprehensive 
and wonderful purification and renovation of the 
Church, to be brought about by the manifest interposi- 
tion of heavenly powers (though this is not the case with 
Vincens and Bonaventura). But when this revolution 
and universal conversion did not occur, or seemed to 
be kept too long in suspense, then it naturally came 



400 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 



to pass that those men who despaired of the vital 
energy of the Church as no longer sufficient for its own 
reformation, at last took the matter into their own 
hands, determined to carry out the work of reform, if 
necessary, in the convulsions of a violent and un- 
sparing revolution. It is only lately that attention 
has again, in Italy, been directed to the visions of St. 
Brigitta, which for a long time were almost forgotten. 
She testifies that she was shown the Leonine City, 
or, as she expresses it, that part of the city from the 
Vatican and St. Peter's to the Castle of St. Angelo 
and thence to St. Spirito,, spread out like a plain 
surrounded by a massive wall, in which the different 
dweUings stood alongside of the wall (as in a Belgian 
Beguine court). At the same time she heard a voice 
from heaven saying : The pope who loves the 
Church as well as I and my friends have loved it, will 
take possession of this abode so that he can call his 
counsellors to himself in freedom and peace." 
(Revel. y 6, 74). This has not been overlooked in 
these latter days, and St. Brigitta, whom the Church 
placed so high and canonized for this very gift of 
prophecy, would say to the present pope, that he 
will have more peace and freedom for ecclesiastical 
consultations with his adherents, if restricted to the 
Leonine City, than as the ruler of a State. ^ 

1 See the work of Gennarelli, recently published in Florence, 
CajJitoli per la Lcbertd, MeLigiosa e I'oni'jicia. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 401 

In the fourteenth century, when what was un- 
natural and horrible was as easily believed as it was 
frequently enacted, and when the history of the 
European States was moving on in morbid throes, the 
prophecies, too, were very apt to go astray as soon as 
they were applied to definite dates and concrete 
events. One example of this : the year 1348 and the 
two following years are among the most extraordinary 
and fatal of that period. The diary of Michael de 
Leone ^ communicates a prophecy of a " great 
astrologer" for the year 1348: "There will be a 
single master, the Rorhan Empire will be ag- 
grandized. The tyrant, the king of France, will fall 
with his barons, the pope with his cardinals will be 
destroyed." To this he adds famine and mortality, 
some common -places about meteorological dis- 
turbances, and a few unintelligible phrases. Here, 
perhaps, an allusion may be found to the fearful pest 
of the Black Death, which then filled all Europe with 
terror ; but all the rest failed. So little was the Roman 
Empire at that time aggrandized, that, on the 
contrary, the first years of the reign of Charles 
IV. can only be described as a period of growing 
decline. King Philip of France did not fall, and the 

1 In Bohmer, Fontes Rer. German, i., 434. Of the Pope with the 
cardinals it is said, Dlssipabiiur. 



402 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

pope with his cardinals sat at ease in Avignon. 
Here, too, we have only wishes turned into pro- 
phecies. 

The unfortunate issue of the Crusades, and the 
general dislike to abandoning the long-cherished 
hope of regaining Palestine and the Holy City, gave 
birth in Southern Europe to a special order of 
prophecies. In a work composed in 1205, entitled 
** The Seed of the Scriptures," ^ it was predicted that 
in a hundred years the Holy Land would be regained, 
and the Church delivered from that simony which 
was the cause of its loss. Somewhat later, in 
Southern Italy, a whole series of similar prophecies 
was fabricated, more and more positive and palpable. 
The Carmelites, who thought that they had claims to 
certain places in Palestine, were especially active in 
this affair. They gave out that Christ had made 
a revelation to one of their mythical saints, St. 
Angelus, to the effect that a holy and powerful king 
of the French house would undertake a passagiiim 
together with the pope, and deliver the City from the 
hands of the infidels. 2 When the Spanish house of 
Arragon began its reign in Naples, other prophecies 

1 De Semine Scripturarum. Sae the Notitia Sseculi, in Karajau's 
book, Zur Geschlchte des Concils von Ly s., 104. 

2 Vita St. Angeli Cannelitse, in the Acta Sanctor. Bolland^ Maii, 
ii., 821. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 403 

were invented, promising to these princes or their 
successors a great Empire, briUiant conquests in the 
north and south, and in addition the taking of 
Jerusalem. ^ 

For this purpose Joachim had to be again used, and 
along with him Johannes Aquitanus and Johannes 
Rala were adduced as authors of such prophecies. 
It was well for those pious women, Catharine and 
Brigitta, and in general for all those whD w^re then 
troubled about the condition of the Church, that they 
lived only in the visions of the future, while the past 
and the sequence of causes and effects which had 
produced the present condition of the Church, were 
unknown to them. The corruption, as it lay before 
their eyes, they held to be accidental, the product of 
recent times ; so that it might vanish away in a 
sudden revolution, under a fuller outpouring of divine 
grace. They would have been lost in a labyrinth of 
doubts and struggles of conscience, and wholly dis- 
heartened, had they clearly seen that the present 
condition of the Church was the consequence of a 
regularly planned perversion of ecclesiastical ordi- 
nances and institutions. Those well-meaning prophets 
of the " Papa Angelicus," then so common in Italy, 

1 See the Bollandists, as above, p. 822, who have taken it from 
the work of Johannes Bonatius, De I'ro^hetis mi Temjporis, Naples, 
1660. 



404 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

had the fancy that a single, pious man, spending a 
hfe of voluntary poverty and austerity, a second 
Celestine V., a stranger to all political complications, 
would be sufficient, if raised to the Papal Chair, to 
effect a thorough reformation of the Church in the 
shortest time. In point of fact, for several centuries, 
not one of the popes had effected any earnest and 
permanent improvement in the affairs of the Church. 
And in the Ijng series of popes, from A.D. 1300 to 
A.D. 1500, there was not one whom the popular belief, 
e'> en for a day, imagined to be the foretold " Angelic 
Tope."! 

But he was expected with ardent longing in all 
Italy, as the true Emperor Frederick was expected in 
Germany. In the year 15 14, Julius de Medici (after- 
wards Pope Clement VII.), then Vicar General of the 
Bishop of Florence, imprisoned a monk named Theo- 
dore, who had represented to the people that an angel 
had declared to him that he, Theodore, was the " * Papa 
Angelico ' expected by the Italian people." ^ When 
Savonarola appeared publicly as a reformer in Flo- 

1 This name came from a misunderstood passage in the old Latin 
poem ascribed to Tertullian. There the Hermas, who wrote the 
Pastor or " Shepherd," is spoken of, and this " Shepherd " or angel 
is designated as the angelicus pastor. 

2 Cambi, Stone Fioreniine^ iii., 60. Moreni, Memorie della Basilica 
di S. Lorenzo, ii., 311. 



I'^HE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 405 

rence, he was accused by his opponents of really 
intending to have himself made " Papa Angelicas ; " 
and his adherents actually believed that God had 
chosen him for this. And all the more, as one 
Prosper© Pitti, a priest of Florence, believed to have 
prophetic illumination, had a long time before, 
together with other events, foretold the coming of 
this bold preaching monk, and the simultaneous 
elevation of the Angel Pope." Savonarola himself 
afterguards, on the rack, declared that his object had 
not been to become pope, but to bring about a general 
Council for the purification of the Church. ^ As early 
as 149 1, in the very midst of Rome, a poorly clad 
street preacher had appeared, with a wooden cross in 
his hand, proclaiming that the revelation of the 
** Pastor Angelicus " was near at hand, together with 
heavy judgments upon Florence, Milan and Venice. 
The citizens of Rome, however, did not show the 
slightest longing for such a pope, who must of course 
begin with stopping their most fruitful sources of 
revenue ; and the prophet was laughed at as crazy. ^ 
This expectation of an "Angel Pope" manifestly 
sprang up on Italian soil. By the simplest means 
and in the shortest time, although, as it was for the 

1 Guicciardini, Storia d' Italia, 3, 7. 

2 Steph. Infessura, JJiariunij in Muratori, Scrip. Ital. iii., 2, p, 
1250. 



4o6 THE PROPHETIC SPHUT, ETCl 

most part believed, after a great shedding of 
blood, and after the secularization of the Church 
property, which had become the mere rental of the 
priests, he would accomplish the gigantic work of 
reformation, restoring the Church to the truth of the 
gospel. It was soon found that a single " Angelicus" 
was not sufficient for this, so the prophecies soon 
became broader, and towards the end of the fourteenth 
century the single elect one was enlarged into a series 
of four Angel-Popes. The first who predicted this 
was the venerable Rabanus, Archbishop of Mayence, 
who, by the accidental error of being mistaken for the 
author of Adso's work on Antichrist, obtained the 
name of a prophet, and was credited with the origin 
of a prediction which briefly designated the four 
popes who were to bless the Church. Joachim, in a 
work ascribed to him, the Book of Fiore, and also 
a so-called Dandalus, who was supposed to have been 
the author of a "Revelation of the Popes," bore 
witness to the four expected popes. ^ The third was 
to uproot the temporalities of the Church (here is 
betrayed the Minorite- J oachimite origin of the pro- 
phecy) ; and the fourth was to wander through the 
whole world as a preacher and propagator of the 

1 Bishop Berthold of Chieiasee, in his Onus Ecclesise^ 60, 8, 9, 
gives the passages* 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 407 

Christian faith. Then would begin the catastrophe of 
the end. 

This antagonism of the two schools or tendencies, 
the Joachimites and the anti-Joachimites, the hopeful 
and the pessimists, was prolonged for centuries. The 
monk Giovanni delle Celle, of Florence, in a work 
written against the Fraticelli, summed up this contrast 
in a concise and conclusive manner.^ " The former say 
the world must be renewed, I say it must go to the 
ground." Both agreed that the Church was in a most 
woful condition, desperately diseased, and so defaced 
as to be scarcely recognised. But, the one said, it can 
and must be restored ; fearful and bloody judgments 
will first come, but there will follow a long and blessed 
time of ecclesiastical prosperity. The other said, this 
decrepitude of the Church will not end in restored 
health, but all signs indicate death ; and the cata- 
strophes, which, according to biblical and traditional 
prophecy, are partly to precede the coming of the 
great adversary and partly to attend it, are already 
begun or are near at hand. History proved both to 
be wrong. At the time of the Great Schism (1378- 
1455), Henry of Langenstein reported the prophetic 

1 Costoro dicono che'l mondo si dee rinovellare, edio dico clio 
dee rovinare. In the Compendio di Dottrina, in the Scelta di Cuii- 
osiia Lett, (Bologna, 18G1), disp. 86, p. 351. 



408 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

spirit as in full blossom. ^ There were soothsayers m 
abundance who made predictions from the course of 
the stars, or from conjectures after rules of their own, 
and found a hearing ; their vaticinations were copied 
and illuminated, as though they were the literal 
revelations of the Holy Ghost. In short, they were 
floating in a sea of prophecies as to the end of the 
schism, all of which came to confusion. Henry 
relates the fate of one of these prophets : There came 
from France to the cloister of Eberbach a learned 
monk, esteemed a saint ; he had received revelations 
as to the short duration of the schism, and was sure 
that it would continue only a few years. As the 
years flowed on and the schism still continued, he said 
that he had not weighed the words of the Holy 
Ghost with sufficient care; he now knew the end 
would come somewhat later. But this limit also 
passed by, and the double schism became a triple one. 
Then such a feeling of shame got hold of him, that 
he threw away his monastic garb, fled from the 
cloister, and wandered around the neighboring forests 
in wretched lay clothing. 

One of the late fruits of the ideas and prophetic 
spirit of the Joachimite school is the writing of a 

1 Henrici dc Hassias, Liher contra Valicinia Telesphori, Tliesaur, 
Anccdot., i., 2, 516. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 409 

so-called hermit Telespliorus, who was born, as he 
says, at Cosenza, in the time of the great ecclesiastical 
rupture, towards the end of the fourteenth century ; 
and he gave out that he dwelt in the neighborhood of 
Thebes, that is, where Thebes, now in ruins, once 
stood. He relates that by the advice of an angel, 
who appeared to him in 1 386, he buried himself in 
the study of the prophecies of Cyril and Joachim, of 
Merlin and Dandalus, of the Sibyls and of the papal 
chronicles. The fruit of his study is the glorification 
of France and its king and the French pope. He 
said that the schism would come to an end by the 
killing of the Anti-Pope (the Italian), which would be 
in the year 1393 at Perugia; then would follow a 
great renovation of the Church and a return of the 
clergy to apostolic poverty, for all their wealth and 
estates would be taken from them. At the same time 
great wars would be waged between the nations 
of Europe, in which the two allies would be victorious, 
viz : the true (French) pope and the French king. 
For the true pope is the one for whom this king has 
declared himself, since the kings of France in all 
the papal divisions have always contended for the 
legitimate pope ; and he must conquer whom the pope 
helps, that is the French king. 

Only it is remarkable that this Joachimite, with 

35 



410 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

his Guelph sympathies, who hides himself under the 
name of Telesphorus, revived and appropriated the 
legend, now more than a hundred years old, about 
the Emperor Frederick III., who was to be the 
restorer of the Empire and the Church, — but gave it 
an opposite sense. About the year 1409 — so runs 
his prophecy, — this German Frederick, of the seed of 
the second Frederick, will be raised to the imperial 
throne, will subdue the Roman Church and set up a 
German Anti-Pope, will destroy the clergy in a blood 
bath, and then march from Italy into France. King 
Charles is to be his prisoner; but, miraculously set 
free from the prison, he will fight with and kill 
this German Emperor. Whereupon the " Pastor 
Angehcus," meanwhile raised to the Chair of Peter, 
will forever deprive the German princes of their 
rights in the election of the Emperor, and will elect 
and crown King Charles as Emperor. The Emperor 
and the Pope are then to march to Palestine and 
conquer it. Whereupon all the children of men will 
be converted, and the world will be at peace. ^ And 
so the mask is taken off from this prophecy, pro- 

1 This work, ascribed to Telesphorus, was printed at Venice in 
1515 ; but this edition is so rare, that Papenbrock and Mosheim 
know the work only in manuscript- This Venetian edition is before 
me. Muratori, in the Antiguitates lial.j iii, 949, has copied the 
beginning. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 411 

claimed with such pretensions upon the authority of 
an angel, and widely read and believed ; and it seems to 
be only a programme of the French aspirations and 
political aims. It had long been a cherished scheme 
of the French princes and statesmen, to connect the 
Empire with the royal house of France. The Germans 
now tried to weaken the effect of this vaticination in 
a twofold way, by a counter-prophecy, and by a 
theological refutation. 

The German Anti-Telesphorus prophet is said to 
have been one Gamaleon, a relation of Pope Boniface 
VIII., and to have imparted to the latter his outlook 
into the future in the year 1390. ^ Like Telesphorus, 
he represents that a French king was crowned Roman 
Emperor by the Pope. This king is to wrest the 
empire from the restless Germans ; Rome and Italy 
are to be his confederates. The clergy, the prophet 
goes on to say, has already levelled to the ground all 
the kingdoms of this world and all principalities. It 
will at last wrest the empire from the German nation, 
and strive for the annihilation of the secular princes. 
Then the Roman Emperor will march forth from the 
field of lilies, subdue Rome, destroy all the lords and 
tyrants, the Roman Empire, take the French king 

1 His prophecy is in tlie collection of Wolfgang Lazins: Frag- 
mentum Vaiicinii cvjusdam Methodiif etc. (Vienna, 1547), f. hij. 



412 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC, 

prisoner, and in future the kingdom of France will no 
longer be honored, but only the German empire. A 
German patriarchate will then be established at 
Mayence, the German land and people be raised tf* 
high honor, and live with their new shepherd (by 
whom is probably meant the patriarch of Mayence, 
raised to the papal dignity) ; then comes an expedi- 
tion to the Holy Land, the last of the Crusades. 
Lazius in quoting this prophecy leaves out the long 
description of the ecclesiastical corruptions ; yet here 
are found allusions to thoughts and aims, which after- 
wards became prominent in the great Peasants' Wars. 

The theological refutation of Telesphorus was 
undertaken by Henry of ♦ Langenstein, the most 
famous German theologian of that time. His 
book shows more than all else, that the Joachimite 
views had decided opponents in Germany as well as 
in France. Tienry declares it is a heresy on the part 
of Joachim and his disciple Telesphorus, to speak 
about the " leprosy of the Church that has committed 
whoredom," — a representation current among the 
Italian Jca:himites, especially since the Guelph party 
had become accustomed to confound Pope and 
Church, and to call itself the party of the Church. Put 
in Germany this still sounded strange and gave great 
offense ; it was conceded that the Roman Curia 



777^ PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 413 



might well deserve this apocalyptic description, but 
they could not endure to have the whole Church so 
called. Henry did not find it any the less ob- 
jectionable, that the prophet of Cosenza should say 
to laymen, that by confiscating ecclesiastical property 
and robbing the clergy they were executing the 
divine will. ^ Henry saw clearly that the prophet 
reverenced and flattered the French court, without 
being aware of the real connection of things. For 
there was then on foot a plan for bringing Genoa 
under French domination, which was carried out at 
Christmas, in the year 1386. Just before this, 
Telesphorus sent his book with a dedication to the 
doge, Antonio of Genoa, doubtless in order to teach 
him that the republic, which still accepted the 
Emperor's sovereignty, would do better to submit to 
the French King Charles VI., since he was soon to be 
emperor himself 

At last, as the human race approached the great 
epoch of the Reformation and the rupture of Christen- 
dom, the prophetic voices became more threatening, 

1 If he had had a more intimate acquaintance with the Spiritnalcs 
and Fvaticelli, still numeroas iu Southern Germany, ho would have 
recognized in Telesphorus a member of this community. For among 
the things which, according to his prediction, w sre soon to be 
fultilled, belonged the dissolution of all the spiritual orders, to be 
followed by the founding of a new one, which Joachim had already 
foretold j and all future popes were to come from the latter. 



414 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

and the thrusts against the papacy more sharp. The 
Irish used to relate about their St. Columba, that 
God was pleased to give him the spirit of prophecy 
in the shape of a wonderfully beautiful queen {Acta 
Sanctorum, Bolland. Januar. ii., 330) ; and so we may 
say that the prophetic spirit rf those times had a 
stonied gorgon-like brow, or at the best appeared 
like a sorrowful widow clad in garments of mourning. 
There was no longer need of any special prophetic 
gift, for every one believed that he could announce 
with certainty the breaking forth of a great 
catastrophe. Centuries before this the revered Bishop 
Grosseteste of Lincoln had declared upon his dying 
bed, that the evjls of the Church could be healed only 
by fire and sword ; and now Macchiavelli, a man of a 
very different spirit, but the most acute observer of 
his times, declared that one of two things must come 
upon the Roman Church, destruction, or a terrible 
chastisement. ^ At the same time Pico of Mirandula 
believed, as he declared in his Oration to Leo X., 
that in Italy, of whose ecclesiastical condition he 
drew a fearful description, the severe and bloody 
punishment of an avenging Providence had already 
begun, and still worse evils were to follow. 

1 Esser propinquo senza dubbio o la rovina o il flagello : Discorsi 
sopra Livio, i., 12 Opere, Firenze 1843, 273. Roscoe, in his Life and 
Pontificate of Leo X, gives the oration of Pico. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 415 

Just before this, Italy had seen in one of its great 
men the most renowned prophet since Joachim, 
Girolamo Savonarola, the preaching monk, who 
atoned with his life for his firm faith in his mission as 
a seer, and for the boldness of his warnings. As to 
the prophetic gift of Savonarola, the judgment of his 
contemporaries was as divided as is that of later 
times. But it is more and more conceded, that 
this extraordinary man actually possessed a peculiar 
gift of divination, as the best of his biographers, 
Villari, has declared. The historian Comines, who 
always speaks of him with high veneration, asserts 
that he had told him things which nobody believed, 
and which had all been confirmed. Even Macchi- 
avelli did not venture to deny his prophecies, 
" because we must speak with reverence of so great 
a man." {Discorsi, i., 12, p. 272.) Guicciardini 
withholds his judgment until time shall have decided 
about his predictions. 

Two statesmen have boasted that in the com- 
munities in which they lived nothing important ever 
occurred which they had not foreseen. Cicero claims 
this for himself ; and the other one, the French 
Du Vair, goes still further and asserts that not only 
in the State, but also in his private life, nothing ever 
came to pass which he had not beforehand seen to 



4i6 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC, 



be coming. ^ It seems to me that Savonarola had a 
similarly organized nature. 

Savonarola's prophecies were partly the result of his 
natural insight and rare penetration, in part they 
were the conclusions he drew from the course of 
Jewish history as applied to the Christian Church ; 
and, in fine, they were also the interpretations of 
visions which he had had, — as he himself tells of one 
such vision of two immense crosses, which were shown 
him on Good Friday night, 1492, with other won- 
derful pictures ; and he gives an interpretation of 
them. 2 The future holy pope, in whose speedy 
coming he believed, was brought in vision before him; 
he saw his face and form, without knowing who he 
was among the living, whether an Italian or a 
foreigner. ^ That this disposition to believe in visions, 
his own and those of others, was in him developed 

1 Cicero's statement is in his Ujnsiolse Family 6, 6. Du Vair was 
President of the Parliament of Provence, and the first parliamentary 
orator of his century ; he lived in the times of Henry IV , and of the 
Burgher wars. His declarations referred to above are quoted in 
Menage, Observations sur la langue Frangaise^ ii., 110. There is, 
however, this difference between the Roman and the Frenchman ; 
Du Va,ir ascribes his anticipations to a sagacity which nature had 
given him, while Cicero believes himself indebted for his divinaiio to 
prolonged study and political experience gradually attained by many 
years of service. 

2 Compendium Rei elationum, TJlm, 1469, Fol. 9. 

3 Oracolo della Eenovazione, Fol. 115. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 417 

even to superstition is proved by his reliance upon 
the angelic voices, which Marelli, a comrade of his 
Order, maintained that he had heard. (See Villari, i., 
296.) Thus it came to pass, that his poHtical pro- 
phecies were fulfilled, but his religious ones were not 
fulfilled. His reputation as a prophet was confirmed 
and widely diffused by his prediction of what nobody 
was looking for, viz : the French invasion of Italy 
under Charles VIII., and the expulsion of the Medici 
from Florence. But he also foretold with all definiteness 
a speedy and entire devastation of Rome by fire and 
sword, because Rome was the great deceiver of all 
Christendom and the source of its crimes. ^ This 
destruction never occurred. He further maintained 
that after many grievous visitations and woes, with 
which God was about to chastise his Church, it would 
again be built up as it was in the times of the apostles. 
Savonarola starts with the idea that when the Church 
had sunk so deep, and was so thoroughly gangrened 
as was then the case in Latin Christendom, especially 
in Italy, there must ere long be a renovation ; or 
else we must suppose that God will forever cast off 
his bride, as he formerly did the Synagogue, and 

1 Oracolo della Renovazione della Chiesa (Venice, 1543), fol. 101. 
In this work the Florentine Dominican, Luca Bettini, brings together 
all of Savonarola's prophecies about the Church. 



4i8 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

consign it to a hopeless and helpless perdition ; this, 
however, is inconceivable on the principles of- faith. 
But such a reform as he had in mind and longed for 
never occurred. He was no more successful in his 
assurance that a universal conversion of unbelievers 
would foUov/ the ecclesiastical renovation. On the 
other hand, he clearly foresaw that his prophetic 
mission, and the whole position into which he did not 
force himself so much as he was forced by others, 
would inevitably result in his own destruction. He 
longed, he said, to return from the deep sea on which he 
was afloat to the haven from which he cam.e, but it was 
no longer possible ; the cause he represented would be 
victorious, but he would suffer death from it ; for the 
master, who bore the hammer, would cast him away 
when he had made use of him. At the end of March, 
1498, he was still preaching thus: "Rome will not 
quench these flames, and if these be quenched God 
will kindle others, and they are already kindled all 
around, only you do not know it." On the 23d of 
May, 1498, he was executed, the Pope said, because 
he was a heretic ; his Order and his numerous 
adherents said, because he was a witness of the truth. 
A sacred office has been dedicated to him a-s a holy 
martyr, and persons, whom Rome itself has canonized, 
like Catharina Ricci and Philip Neri, have reverenced 
and called upon him by this name. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 419 



In Germany, down to the period of the Re- 
formation, a certain popular treasury of prophecies 
was gathered up, which was at once the expression 
and the nutriment of the national wishes and 
anticipations. Methodius, Joachim, Brigitta, Hilde- 
garde, and the so-called Sibylline Revelations, they 
had in common with the whole western world. 
There has never appeared in Germany a man like 
Savonarola, who claimed prophetic endowments and 
was received as possessing them. But the names of 
mythical personages were attached to the prophecies 
which had sprung up in the heart of the people. 
Thus they had an Eremite prophet, John Lichten- 
berger. It is said in a poem on the war of Cologne 
in 1745 : 

*< This thing three years before to pass it came 
One in Mayence did publicly foretell : 
John Lichtenberger is the prophet's name. 
In the whole kingdom is he known full well." i 

This only means that the Lichtenberger prophecies 
were known through all Germany, but not that the 
prophet in person was universally known. The pro- 
phecies which bore his name were a widely-circulated 

J. Liliencron, Ilistor. VolksUeder, ii., 58 : 

Das hat vor dreien Jahren offenbar 
Geweissaget einer von Mainz fiir war, 
Johann Lichtenberger ist er genannt, 
In dem ganzen Reich wol bekannt. 



420 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC 

and favorite book, as is proved by the great number 
of editions down to 1528. They are a mixed col- 
lection, dating from the end of the fifteenth century, 
relating to Germany and particularly to the Nether- 
lands, and are not the work of any single man. 

A Lollard praying-brother, named Reinhardt, 
published a book on " The Great Tribulations," 
introducing the Sibyls and Brigitta, and predicting 
great bloodshed among the clergy in the time of 
the Emperor Maximilian. Luther, who re-published 
the Lichtenberger book in 1527, remarked in the 
preface that since the war of the Peasants in 1525 
the minds of the clergy had been at rest, as they 
believed that the Lichtenberger prophecies had been 
fulfilled, and that the danger was over. 

There had been for some time a general feeling 
of anxiety among the German clergy in regard to the 
impending catastrophe ; it was felt that among all 
classes of the nation there was great hatred and 
contempt of the class whose morals were so de- 
based and whose system was so thoroughly corrupt. 
Two South-German priests, Wolfgang Aytinger in 
Augsburg, and Joseph Griinpeckh in Ratisbon, 
gave utterance to this anxious foreboding, the for- 
mer in the year 1496, in a commentary on Metho- 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 421 

dlus ; 1 the latter in the year 1508, in a "Mirror of 
Vision," 2 whose title-page exhibited a church falling 
in the midst of flames. While Aytinger attributed 
the chief guilt to the profligate condition of the 
Roman Curia, which he says had become an all- 
destroying hellish abyss, Griinpeckh declared that 
for years there had been an expectation of an ap- 
proaching tempest, which was to burst over Church 
and clergy, throughout all Germany. Wherever men, 
women and children assembled, there it was said, 
" The clergy is shortly to be attacked." Such pro- 
phecies were spread among the people, partly by 
pious and well-meaning persons, who, in spite of some 
divine illumination, w^ere yet narrow-minded, and 
partly by the malicious, who longed for the spoils 
of the ecclesiastical property. Griinpeckh thought 
that a more fatal corruption than that prevalent in 
the Church could hardly be imagined ; still he warned 
the laity not to rejoice too much over the threatened 
visitation upon the priests, since they too must at last 
^ drink the dregs and poison of the cup given to the 
clergy. Another priest, John Hagen, ^ dean of St. 

1 Tractatus super Methodium, (Augsburg, 1496). 

2 i^'peculxim naturali^j celestis et projoheiicse visionis. Nuremberg, 
1508. 

3 Johannis ab Indagine Zuschr>/(, etc., in the Neue Beiirage von 

theolocfischen Sachen. 1152, p. 456-477. 
36 



422 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

Leonard's in Frankfort, spoke still more plainly. He 
predicted, as the result of his astrological studies, a 
great revolution in the Church, and the exposure and 
humiliation of the arrogant clergy. " There is good 
reason why we clergy should be the object of 
universal hatred ; we deserve it." 

Fear, grief and bitterness gave origin to many 
a prophecy in Germany, after the middle of the 
fifteenth century. The disaffection of the clergy 
itself was as great as that of the laity, since the Papal 
Chair had disappointed all the hopes of Church 
renovation, founded on the Council of Basle. One 
such prophetic voice from the clergy was ascribed 
to the most renowned German theologian of his time, 
Henry of Langenstein (commonly called Henry of 
Hesse), although it was of later origin. It charged 
with simony every pope and every bishop since 
Nicolas HI. (1277), and promised a reformation of 
the Romish Church by means of the Germans, the 
French and their Emperor. ^ 

The feeling constantly grew stronger, that though 
help for the Church must in general come from the 
laity, it must above all come from a pious emperor. 
It was even reported that Christ said to St. Brigitta : 
"The king (for whom she had just been praying) 

1 Denis, Codices MS. theologici Biblioth. Yindob., p. 1572. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 423 

shall assemble wise and religiously-enlightened men, 
and consult with them how the fallen walls of the 
Church can be rebuilt, the clergy be delivered from its 
pride, and become again humble and modest. " For, 
verily, my Church has wandered far from me." {Re- 
velationes, 6, 26, p. 436.) 

So it came to pass that German prophecies dwelt 
much upon a pope who was to arise in Germany. 
According to one prophecy, he was first to be 
appointed by the princes and patriarch of Mayence, 
and afterwards crowned as pope upon German soil. 
As Patriarch of the German Church, he would place 
the crown upon an emperor chosen from the Rhine 
provinces, then take arms against the emperor with 
the lilies (the French usurper of the imperial dignity, 
as Telesphorus had called him), kill him and take 
possession of Rome. This was proclaimed from the 
pulpit, in 1409, by John Wiinschelburg, a priest 
of Amberg,! that is at the time of the schism, when 
the thought had sprung up in many a mind whether 
this schism, brought about by the conflicting claims 
of France and Italy for the possession of the Papacy, 
could not be best adjusted by the election of a Ger- 
man pope. 

A work of Bishop Berthold, *'The Burden of the 

1 Jo. Wolfii, Lectiones Memorab. i., 728. 



424 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 

Church," ^ may be considered as the close and h'mit of 
mediaeval prophecy. The author's views are those of 
the Joachimites ; he holds to the theory of the seven 
periods of the Church. His authorities and sources, 
besides Methodius, are Cyril and the Abbot of 
Calabria, the canonized prophets Vincens Ferrer, 
Catharine of Siena, Brigitta, and Hildegarde. As in 
an impressive way he gives a dark view of the great- 
ness and universality of the degradation of the Church, 
and holds up a mirror to the Roman Curia as the 
chief transgressor, so, also, his views and expectations 
of the immediate future are the darkest that can be 
imagined. He had no conception of the historical 
import of Luther's doctrines, and mentions the 
Lutherans only as a new and mischievous sect. He 
had no doubt as to the uprooting of the Papal Chair 
{cxtcrviinhivi), which, however, was to be succeeded 
by a re-establishment and glorification. He shows 
plainly how strong at that time, in Germany, was the 
conviction that the Italian nation, incorporated on its 
worst side by the Papal Curia, had committed a great 
political as well as social and religious crime against 
Germany ; and that now both nations, the Italian first, 
since the year 1510, and the German soon after, must 
do penance for it in bloody wars and revolutions. 
1 "Burden," after Is. xiii., meaning a prophetic utterance. 



THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, ETC. 425 

Kindred to this, and yet pervaded by an entirely 
different spirit, is the " RoUhart " of the Swiss poet, 
Pamphilus Gengenbach. ^ All the p)rophetic person- 
ages so familiar to the Germans, Methodius, Cyril, 
Joachim, Brigitta, Reinhart, are there presented ;. the 
pope, the emperor, the kings of France, the Turk, put 
questions, and the answers they receive form an entire 
prophetic course of past and future events down to 
the appearance of Antichrist. The object seems to 
have been to make the Emperor Maximilian feel 
obliged to fulfil the prophecy that a German 
emperoi or king is to conquer Rome and reform the 
Church. 

" Who can this emperor be ?" asked Maximilian, 
when Brigitta told him that a king was to reform the 
Church entirely and repair the losses of the kingdom. 
Thereupon his own name was given : and Methodius 
also comforted him with the assurance that the Roman 
Empire would never fall. 

" My thoughts are not your thoughts ; as the heaven 
is higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher 
than your thoughts." (Is. iv., 8, 9). With these i'Td- 
phetic words, which must already have occurred to 
many a reader, we close this account of the prophecies 
current for fifteen hundred years after Christ. 

1 Pampliilus Gengenbach, von Godeko (Hannover, 1856), p. 77 etc. 



APPENDIX A. 



The story of the Papess, as given in the Te- The true 
gernsee manuscript in the Royal Library at p^^^^^ 
Munich {Cod. lat. Tegeiiis,, 781), is as follows : — juua. 

Item papa Jutta, qui non fuit alamannus, sicut Giancia 
" mendose fabulatur chronica martiniana. Glan- 

daughter 

" cia puella, fuit filia ditissimi civis Thessalici, ©faThes- 
** cujus omnis meditatio aequivoca nota sapientise saiian, a 
" versabatur ; hujus erat intellectus perspicaxet ^'^^'^^ 

and stu- 

" ingenium docile, quam penitus assidua legendi ^jj^^^g 
** solertia vegetabant ; haec tempore brevi sibi child. At 
*' famam per omnes circuitus vindicabat ; sed ^^^'^'^^^^^ 
" prsedicatas laudes rei Veritas excedebat. Erat , 

^ love with 

" Pircius in scholis iUi juvenculus cosevus. Huic pircius, 
" noto discendi capacitatis ingenio, paternis opi- and eiop- 
" bus et omni quasi frucralitate, consiliis hos ^^^'^^ 

him, 

*' ambos, quos astas aequaverat, exaequat amor, dressed in 

de jugalitate tractatur, parentes abnuunt. Cres- man's 
" cit inter hos ardor et concupiscentia, cum 

^ The two 

" diebus sensim puUulat aetas, in oscula veniunt ^e^^-to 
" et amplexus impatientes. Denique latibulum Athens, 
" petunt et ardentes junguntur. Ludo veneris ^^^^e 
consummato de recessu tractant. Haec inter 

mainedaa 

" mulieres, hie inter homines virtutum dotibus students 



428 APPENDIX A. 



and be- 
came pro 
ficient in 



for a long " ac disclpllnarum studiis optant fieri singulares, 
time. She u ^^^^i-^gj^^LS ire deliberant inter ipsos. Uterque 

displayed 

great " G^^ot potest opulentiis munit ; habitus ges- 
abiiity, tusque capit ilia viriles et similes anitno simul 
" habitus mirandos ac spectabiles illos facit. 
" Nulla mora properant Athenas, ubi longo 
all the " tempore student, et ilia doctior, quidquid est 
arts and « divinae facultatis, aut humanae disciplinas vel 
sciences. ^^ ^rtlum studiosa caoescit, et ille similiter est 

He also ^ 

gained a omni sapientia gloriosus. Hos non Athenas 

na,mef.r "solum, sed universa Graecia veneratur. Hi 

arning. ^^ j>qj^^j^ veniunt, in omni facultate studium 

Thence ' 

theymov- " pronunciant, ad hos omnes conveniunt tarn 
ed to " scholares quam quarumcunque scientiarum 
" doctores et quo profundiores accedunt, quas 
they at- hauriant venas, uberiores inveniunt. Hos 
tracted a " omnes et omnium facultatum doctores adorant, 
^ , „ hos omnes cives venerantur et horum mores 

numberof 

scholars. " modestlamque, virtutes et sapientiam praedicat 
On the <<■ omnis Roma, qui amplius in omnem terram 
" penetrat sonus eorum. Denique functo pon- 

the pope, . ^ 

Giancia " tifice mulicr nominatione omni labio vocatur 
Tyas una- a yQQ,Q non impugnata, Romanis hortantibus, 

nimously 

elected to " apostolatus apiccm promovetur. Cardina- 
succeed. " latur Pircius amasius, vitam sagaciter agunt et 

Pircius 

was made " in corum gubernatione tota laetatur ecclesia. 



APPENDIX A. 



429 



" Sed quum status adulter! raro radices figunt, cardinal. 
" vel si germinent, non roborant, et si roborent, ^^^g* 
non perdurant, accidit ergo, quod antea nun- (^lancia 

became 

*' quam, fucata mulier papissa praegnatur et pregnant, 
" insueta tempora partus is^norans ibat ad eccle- '"^^^^^^'^ 

^ ^ ^ birth to a 

siam sancti Johannis Lateranensis cum uni- child on 
verso clero missam solemnem celebratura. Sed 

to mass, 

"inter Colosseum et ecclesiam s. dementis dying oa 

the spot, 

" coacta doloribus cecidit et puerum peperit et ^^ich rhe 
" pariter expiravit. Hsec viam papa semper 
" evitat et ante coronationem papa semper ma- avoid. 
*' nibus virilia palpantibus exploratur,"etc. 

Vide, quos ad gradus virtus et sapientia extollit 
Pusillos sic altos in sapientia protexit; sed nihil 
Est omnis nostra sagacitas vel industria contra Deum. 
Vide carmina, qus sequuntur. 

Disceret ut leges peregrina juvencula plenas 
Glancia clara seges mulierum transit Athenas 
Cam juvene cupido vir facta, sed ista cupido 
Militat in turbis ac doctores docet urbis. 
Papa fit et paerum pariens et moritur prope clerum. 

Moralitas. 

Nil mage grandescit quam doctus jure fruendo. 
Nil mage vilescit-quam vir sine lege fruendo. 

Papa, pater paaperam, peperit papissa papellum,"etc. 



APPENDIX B. 



The following additional particulars about the fable 
of Pope Joan, gathered mainly from Baring-Gould's 
Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, the notes to 
Soames's edition of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History , 
and the article Papesse in Peter Bayle's Dictionnairet 
will be of interest to those who care to pursue the 
subject further. 

It is greatly to the discredit of Mosheim that he 
should write as follows of this monstrous story : 
** Between Leo IV., who died A.D. 855, and Benedict 

///., a woman, who concealed her sex an.d assumed 
" the name of John, it is said, opened her way to the 
** pontifical throne by her learning and genius, and 
" governed the Church for a time. She is commonly 
" called the Papess Joanna. During the five subse- 
** quent centuries the witnesses to this extraordinary 
" event are without number ; nor did any one, prior 
" to the Reformation by Luther, regard the thing 
" as either incredible, or disgraceful to the Church. 
" But in the seventeenth century, learned men, not 

only among the Roman Catholics, but others also, 
*' exerted all the powers of their ingenuity both to 
" invalidate the testimony on which the truth of the 



APPENDIX B. 431 

story rests and to confute it by an accurate com- 
" putation of dates. There are still, hov/ever, very 
" learned men who, while they concede that much 
" falsehood is mixed with the truth, maintain that 
" the controversy is not wholly settled. Something 
' must necessarily have taken place at Rome to give 
'* rise to this most uniform report of so many ages ; 
" but even yet it is not clear what that something 
*' was." Book III., part 2, chap, ii., § 4. Tant il est 
certain que les memes choses nous paraissent verita- 
bles ou fausses a mesure qu'elles favorisent, ou notre 
parti, ou le parti oppose. One can hardly doubt that 
it was Protestant prejudice which made Mosheim 
" wish to believe" (as Gibbon says of a dubious story 
which pleases him) jihat the myth of Pope Joan might 
be true. It matters little to Protestants, as Bayle 
remarks, whether the Papess existed or not ; it matters 
much that they should not give a handle to people to 
regard them comme des gens opiniatres, et qui ne 
veulent jamais demordre des opinions precongues, 
Mosheim says, During the five subsequent centuries 

the witnesses to this extraordinary event are with- 
" out number ;" he omits to add that they occur in 
the last of the five centuries. For more than 350 years 
after the death of Leo IV. there is absolute silence 
about the Papess. Nor is it true that " no one prior 



432 APPENDIX B, 

*' to Luther's time regarded the thing as incredible 
" or disgraceful to the Church." Most people regarded 
it as a grievous scandal, and some doubted the fact. 
Platina, who wrote before Luther was born, after tell- 
ing the story, says, " haec quae dixi, vulgo feruntur, 
*' incertis tamen et obscuris auctoribus ; quae idco 

ponere breviter et nude institui, ne obstinate et per- 
" tinaciter omisisse videar, quod fere omnes affirmant." 
— Lives of the Popes , John VII. 

It is almost slaying the dead to argue against the 
story of Pope Joan ; but it is worth while to give a 
specimen of Bayle's mode of reasoning. Is it con- 
ceivable that five centuries- hence there will not be a 
single historian extant of the sixteenth or seventeenth 
century who mentions the abdication of Charles V., 
or the assassinations of Henry III. and IV. of France ; 
but that the earliest mention of these great events 
will be in some "miserable annaliste" of the nineteenth 
century If it should be so, the twenty-fourth century 
Avill be very credulous if it believes in these events. 
To show how impossible it would be for the historians 
of the ninth century to have suppressed a fact so 
tremendous as a female pope, who was detected as 
Pope Joan is supposed to have been detected, Bayle 
supposed a writer of the eleventh century to narrate 
as follows : — Charles the Great was very desirous that 



APPENDIX B. 433 

his successor should be his son ; it was therefore a 
great grief to him that his wife was barren. When at 
length there were hopes of a child, he was beside 
himself with joy ; but when the child proved to be a 
girl, he was almost as grieved as before. He deter- 
mined, therefore, to pass the child off as a boy, and 
gave it the name of Pepin. Six years later his wife 
bore him a son ; but the parents still felt bound to 
conceal the sex of the first child, who on Charles* 
death was crowned as his successor. She reigned for 
three years without detection. The deiwiievient took 
place as she was addressing the parliament. The 
woman-king died in childbirth in the midst of the 
august assembly ; and the nobles, in horror, passed a 
law which would render such an imposture impossible 
in future. Imagine half a dozen different accounts 
of the way in which Queen Pepin died, and you have 
a narrative as like that about Pope Joan " comme 

deux gouttes d'eau." What amount of credence 
should we give to this eleventh century writer t 

Some writers appear to have believed that the child 
which the Papess bore was Antichrist ! An eminent 
Dutch minister considers it as immaterial whether its 
father was a monk or the devil. 

The German and French Protestants of the sixteenth 
century delighted in the story, embellishing it with 

37 



434 APPENDIX B. 

details of their own, in order to make capital out of it 
against the Papacy. Nor did their fancy exuberate in 
words only. Some of their accounts are illustrated 
with woodcuts, which would seem to be more curious 
and graphic than decent. Mr. Baring-Gould gives a 
copy of one in which the Papess is strung up to a 
gibbet over the mouth of hell ; rather against the 
version of the story, which says she was allowed to 
choose whether she would have the public exposure, 
or burn for ever in hell. 

The raison d'etre cf the myth, as given by Dr. 
DoUinger in the text, is probably sufficient. Mr. 
Baring-Gould, however, has little doubt " that Pope 
" Joan is an impersonation of the great whore of Re- 
" velation, seated on the seven hills, and is the po- 

pular expression of the idea prevalent from the 
" twelfth to the sixteenth century, that the mystery of 
" miquity was somehow working in the Papal Court. 
" The scandal of the anti-popes, the utter worldliness 

and pride of others, the spiritual fornication with the 
" kings of the earth, along with the words of Revela- 
*' tion prophesying the advent of an adulterous woman 
" who should rule over the Imperial City, and her con- 

nection with Antichrist, crystalHzed into this curious 
" myth, much as the floating uncertainty as to the 

signification of our Lord's words, * There be some 



APPENDIX B, 



435 



' standing here which shall not taste of death till 
" * they see the kingdom of God/ condensed into the 
** myth of the Wandering Jew." 

He gives the following "jingling record" of the 
Papess, which is worth re-quoting. It is a fragment 
of the rhythmical VitcB Pontijlcum of Gulielmus 
Jacobus of Egmonden, preserved in Wol§li Leciioimm 
Memorabilmm centenarii, XVI. : — 

** Priusquam reconditur Sergius, vocatur 
Ad summam, qui dicitur Johannes, huic addatur 
Anglicus, Moguntia iste procreatur. 
Qui, lit dat sententia, fceminis aptatur 
Sexu : quod sequentia monstrant, breviatur 
Hasc vox; nam prolixius chronica proceduLt. 
Ista, de qua h'-^^vius dicta minus laedunt, 
Huic erat amasius, ut scnptores credunt, 
Patria relinquitur Moguntia, Graecorum 
Studiose petitur schola. Post doctorum 
Haec doctrix efficitur Romae legens ; horum 
llasc auditu fungitur loquens. Hinc prostrato 
Summo haec eligitur ; sexu exaltato 
Quandoque negligitur. Fatur quod hsec nato 
Per servum conficitur. Tempore gignendi 
Ad processum equus scanditur, vice flendi, 
Papa cadit, panditur improbis ridendi 
Norma, puer nascitur in vico dementis, 
Colossaeum jungitur. Corpus parentis 
In eodem traditur sepulture gentis, 
Faturque scriptoribus, quod Papa prasfato, 
Vico senioribus transiens amato 
Congruo ductoribus sequitur negato 
Loco, quo Ecclesia partu denigratur, 
Quamvis inter spacia Pontificum ponatur 
Propter sexum.'* 



43^ 



APPENDIX B. 



The literature on the subject is abundant. The 
arguments of those who maintain the truth of the 
story are collected and stated by Frederick Spanheim 
ill his Exei'cit. de Papa Fceuiina (0pp., torn, ii., p. 577), 
and L'Enfant has given a French translation and 
better arrangement of them, with additions : Hisiolrs 
de la Papesse Jeanne, La Haye, 1736 ; two vols. 12 mo* 

The arguments against the myth are given in 
Blondel's ^ famous treatise, Faniilicr e'claircissement de 

1 Baring-Gonld, in liis Curious Myihf, etc., has the following 
statement in respect to this work of Blondel : 

[Blonde], the great Protestant writer, who ruined the case of 
th3 Decretals, says that he examined a M8. of Anastasins in the 
Fvoyal Library at Paris, and found the story of Pope Joan inserted 
ill such a manner as to convince him that it was a late interpolation- 
He says, ' Having read and re-read it, I found that the culogium of 
th? pretended Papess is taken from the words of Martinus Polonus^ 
penitentiary to Innocent IV., and Archbishop of Coscnza, an author 
four hundred years later than Anastasius and much more given to all 
th?se kinds of fables.' His reasons for so thinking are, that the style 
is not that of the Librarian, but similar to that of Martin Polonus; 
also that the insertion interfe res with the text of the chronicle, and 
bears evidence of clumsy piecing. « In the eulogiums of Leo IV. 
and Benedict III., as given to us in the manuscrip!; of the Biblio- 
thoque Iloyale, swelled with the romance of the Papess, the same 
expressions occur as in the Mayence edition ; whence it follows that 
(according to the intention of Anastasius, violated by the rashness 
of those who have mingled it with their idle dreams) it is absolutely 
impossible that any one could have been Pope between Leo IV, 
and Benedict III., for he says : ' After the Prelate Leo was with- 
drawn from this world, at once (mox) all the clergy, the nobles, and 
people of Rome hastened to elect Benedict ; and at once (illico) 
they sought him, praying in the titular church of St. Callixtus, and 



APPENDIX B. 



AZ7 



la qtiesiiojt, si une femme a etc assise ati siege papal de 
Rome, Amsterdam, 1647-9 > Bayle's Dictionnaire 
historiqice et critique, article Papesse. See also Allatii 
Confuiatio Fab nice de Johanna Papissa, Colon., i6^{5 ; 
George Eccard, Historia Francia; Oriental, tom. ii., lib. 
XXX., § 119 ; Michael Lequien, Oriens Christianits, iif., 
p- 777 j Chr. Aug. Pleumann, a Lutheran writer, 
Sylloge Diss. Sacrar., tom. i., pt. ii., p. 352 ; J. G. 
Schelhorn, Avicenitates Liter ar., i., p. 146 ; Jac. Bas- 
nage, Histoire de lEglise, i., j). 408 ; Schroeckh, Kir- 
chengeschichte, xxii., p. 75-110; J. E. C. Schmidt, 
Kirchengeschichte, iv., p. 274-279; A. Bower's Lives 
of the Popes, iv., p. 246-260. 

having seated him on the pontifical thronOj and signed the decree of 
his election, they sent him to the very invincible Augiisti Lothair 
and Louis, and the first of these died on 29 September, 855, just 
seventy-four days after the death of Pope Leo." Pp. 179-181. 
H. D. S.l 



APPENDIX C. 



The story of Poplel, king of Poland, which is so 
similar to that of Bishop Hatto of Mayence, is thus 
given by Mr. Baring-GoulJ : — " IMartinus Gallus, 
"who wrote in iiio, says that King Popiel, having 
" been driven from his kingdom, was so tormented 
" by mice, that he fled to an island whereon was 
" a v/ooden tower, in which he took refuge ; but 
" the host of mice and rats swam over and ate him 
" up. The story is told more fully by Majolus 
{Dicnnn Canic.y p. 793). When the Poles mur- 
" mured at the bad government of the king, and 
" sought redress, Popiel summoned the chief mur- 
" murers to his palace, where he pretended that he 
" was ill, and then poisoned them. After this the 
" corpses were flung by his orders into the lake 
" Gopolo. Then the king held a banquet of rejoicing 
at having freed himself from these troublesome 
complainers. But during the feast, by a strange 
" metamorphosis (mira quadam metamorphosi), an 
" enormous number of mice issued from the bodies of 
" his poisoned subjects, and rushing on the palace, 
" attacked the king and his family. Popiel took 
" refuge within a circle of fire, but the mice broke 

438 



APPENDIX C. 439 

" through the flaming ring ; then he fled with his wife 
" and child to a castle in the sea, but was followed by 
" the animals and devoured." 

He also gives other stories, more or less parallel 
to that of Bishop Hatto ; for instance, the one of 
Freiherr von Giittingen. This baron is said to have 
possessed three castles between Constance and 
Arbon, in the canton of Thurgau, namely, Giittin- 
gen, Moosburg, and Oberburg. During a grievous 
famine he collected the poor on his lands together, 
shut them up in a barn, and burnt them, mocking 
their shrieks by exclaiming, " Hark how the rats 
** and mice are squeaking !'* Not long after a huge 
swarm of mice came down upon him. He fled to 
his castle of Giittingen, which stood in the lake 
of Constance; but the mice swam after him and 
devoured him. The castle then sank into the lake, 
where it may still be seen when the w^ater is clear 
and the surface unruffled {Zeitschrift fiir DeiUscJie 
Mythologie, iii., p. 307). Again, there is a mouse- 
tower at Holzolster, in Austria, with a very similar 
legend attached, except that here the wicked noble- 
man locks the poor people up in a dungeon and 
starves them to death, instead of making a bonfire of 
them (Vernaleken, Alpensagen, p. 328). Another 
instance is referred to by Dr. Dollinger in the text. 



440 ' APPENDIX C. 

The Worthsee, between Tonning and Seefeld, in 
Bavaria, is also called the Mouse lake. A count of 
Seefeld once starved all his famishing poor to death 
in a dungeon during a famine, and laughed at their 
cries, which he called the squeaking of mice. An 
island tower was as little use to him as to Bishop 
Hatto or King Popiel, though he took the additional 
precaution of having his bed swung from the roof by 
chains. The mice got at him from the ceiling, and 
picked his bones {Zcitschrift fiir Dent. Myth, i., p. 
452). The Mauseschloss in the Hirschberger lake is 
another instance of a very similar story. Legends 
abound in which rats or mice are made instruments 
of divine vengeance, but they do not always contain 
the feature of the island tower, which is essential for 
our present purpose. Sometimes the avenging vermin 
are toads and frogs instead of rats and mice. 

The tendency which a story of interest has to 
attract round itself as evidence circumstances which 
have no connection with it whatever, is so strikingly 
illustrated by the famous incident of the so-called 
** Thundering Legion," that I venture to call attention 
to it. For the sake of clearness I give the outHne of 
the story. The Emperor Marcus Aurelms, in his 
celebrated war against the Quadri, was reduced to 
the greatest extremities by a failure of water, just on 



APPENDIX C. 441 

the very eve of a battle. A large body of Christians 
in one of the legions fell on their knees, and prayed 
to heaven for help. A sudden storm followed, which 
by its thunder and lightning terrified the barbarians, 
and by its heavy rain relieved the thirst of the 
Romans. The truth of the narrative does not 
concern us ; but probably no one who examines the 
evidence, as collected by Dr. Newman in his Essays 
on Miracles (Essay IL, chap, v., section i), will dissent 
from his very moderate statement of the result. " On 
" the whole, then, we may conclude that the facts of 
" this memorable occurrence are as the early Christian 
" writers state them ; that Christian soldiers did ask, 
*' and did receive, in a great distress, rain for their 
" own supply, and lightning against enemies ; 

whether through miracle or not we cannot 
** say for certain, but more probably not through 
" miracle in the philosophical sense of the word. All 
" we know, and all we need know is, that * He made 
" * darkness His secret place. His pavilion round 
" * about him, with dark water and thick clouds to 
" * cover Him ; the Lord thundered out of heaven, 
" ' and the Highest gave His thunder; hailstones and 
" * coals of fire. He sent out His arrows, and 
** ' scattered them ; He sent forth lightnings, and 
" * destroyed them.' " Just as the story of Pope Joari 



442 APPENDIX C, 

fastened on the fact that pontifical processions never 
passed through the narrow street between the church 
of St. Clement and the Coliseum, and just as the story 
of the Count of Gleichen made capital out of the big 
bed and the jewel which the Turkish princess was 
supposed to have worn in her turban, so this history 
of the " Thundering Legion" has incorporated with 
itself two utterly irrelevant circumstances, and that 
so completely, that some persons have supposed that 
by exposing the irrelevancy they have necessarily 
demclished the story — "as if evidence were the test 
of truth." Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, 
was a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius. His state- 
ment of this incident in the war against the Quadri is 
preserved to us by Eusebius {Hist, v., 5), and he 
alleges as evidence that the legion to which these 
Christian soldiers belonged was thenceforth called 
the Thundering Legion. Tertullian, writing some 
five and twenty years later (about A.D. 200), states by 
way of evidence that the emperor in consequence 
passed an edict in favour 'of the Christians {Apo- 
logetictiSy chap. v. ; cf. Ad Scapiilam, cap. iv.). Now 
there certainly was a Thundering Legion (Legio 
Fulminatrix), viz., the twelfth ; but then it was as old 
as the time of Augustus. It was one of the nineteen 
legions levied by him. And as regards Tertullian's 



APPENDIX C. 443 

argument, there is some evidence that Marcus 
Aurelius did issue a rescript favouring the Christians, 
but in the period of his reign which preceded the 
battle. And it is notorious that he persecuted the 
Christians both before and after that event. Here, 
then, we have a story, almost certainly true in itself, 
claiming as evidence circumstances which, however 
well attested, have nothing v/hatever to do with it. 

Instances of strange and unusual objects giving 
rise to myths might be multiplied almost ad infiniium. 
Thus the story of Arion arose from the figure of a 
man on a dolphin, which was the customary offering 
of one saved from shipwreck ; the dolphin being a 
mere emblem of the sea. The story of the Horatii and 
Curiatii seems to be an attempt to explain five 
barrows. The custom of representing martyrs with 
the instruments or marks of their sufferings, produced 
the legend of St. Denys v/alicing with his head under 
his arm. The allegorical picture of Michael the 
Archangel conquering the Evil One in the presence 
of the Church, gave rise to the myth of St. George 
rescuing Saba from the dragon, &c. 



APPENDIX D. 



Pope Hadrian's Letter to Henry H., King 
OF England, a.d. 1154. 

AdriantLS Papa gratiim et acceptnm hahet quod Hen^ 
ricus Rex Anglice Insulam Hyberniam ingrediatiir 
lit popiiliim ilium legibus subdaty ita tamen ut amiiia 
Petro solvatiLV pensio. 

Adrianus Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, caris- 
simo in Christo filio illustri Anglorum Regi, salu- 
tem et Apostolicam Benedictionem. Laudabiliter 
satis et fructuose de glorioso nomine propagando 
in terris et seternae felicitatis praemio cumulando in 
coelis, tua magnificentia cogitat, dum ad dilatandos 
Ecclesise terminos, ad declarandam indoctis et rudibus 
Populis Christianae fidei veritatem, et vitiorum plan- 
taria de Agro Dominico extirpanda, sicut Catholicus 
Princeps, intendis, et ad id convenientius exequendum 
consilium Apostolicae sedis exigis et favorem. In quo 
facto, quanto altiori Consilio, et majori discretione 
procedes, tanto in eo feliciorem progressum te, 
praestante Domino, confidimus liabiturum, eo quod ad 
bonum exitum semper et finem soleant attingere quae 
de ardore fidei et religionis amore principium ac- 
ceperunt. 

444 



APPENDIX D. 445 

Sane Hiberniam et omnes Insulas quibus sol 
justitise Christus illuxit, et quae documenta Fidei 
Christianae receperunt, ad jus beati Petri et sacro- 
sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae (quod tua etiam nobilitas 
recognoscit) non est dubium pertinere, unde tanto in 
eis libentius plantationem fidei fidelem et germen Deo 
gratum inserimus, quanto id a nobis interne exadis- 
trictius prospicimus exigendum. 

Significasti siquidem nobis, fili in Christo carissime, 
te Hyberniae Insulam ad subdendum ilium populum 
legibus, et vitiorum plantaria inde extirpanda, velle 
intrare, et de singulis domihiLS Anmtam tmiiLs denarii 
beato Petri velle solvere pensionem et jura Ecclesiarum 
illius terras illibata et Integra conservare ; nos itaque, 
pium et laudabile desiderium tuum favore congruo 
prosequentes, et petitioni tu^ benignum impendentes 
assensum, gratum et acccptum habemus, ut, pro 
dilatandis Ecclesiae terminis, pro vitiorum restrin- 
gendo decursu, pro corrigendis moribus et virtutibus 
inserendis, pro Christianae Religionis augmento, Insu- 
lam illam ingrediaris ; et quae ad honorem Dei et salu- 
tem illius spectaverint exequaris ; et illius terrae populus 
honorifice te recipiat ; et sicut Dominum veneretur 
{jttre nimiriim Ecelesiarum illibato et integro pernia- 
nejtte, et salva beato Petro et sacrosanctcB Romance Ecele- 
sice de singulis domibiis annua unins denarii pensione). 

38 



446 APPENDIX D, 

Si ergo, quod concepisti animo, effectu duxeris 
prosequente complendum, stude gentem illam bonis 
moribus informare, et agas, tarn per te, quam per 
illos quos ad hoc fide, verbo, et vita idoneos esse 
perspexeris, ut decoretur ibi Ecclesia, plantetur et 
crescat Fidei Christianae Religio, et quae ad honorem 
Dei et salutem pertinent animarum taliter ordinentur, 
ut et a Deo sempiternae mercedis cumulum consequi 
merearis, et in terris gloriosum nomen valeas in seculis 
obtinere. — Rymer's Fcedera, Conventiones, &c., I., p. 15. 

It is interesting to compare with the claims made 
by the above document the decision of the recent 
Council of the Vatican : 

" Si quis' itaque dixerit, Romanum Pontificem 
*' habere tantummodo officium inspectionis vel di- 
" rectionis, non autem plenam et siipreinam potestatem 
jurisdictionis in universain Ecclesiam, non solum in 
" rebus, quae ad fidem et mores, sed etiam qiicB ad 
*' disciplinam et regimen EcclesicB per totiim orbem 
" dijfiisce pei'tinent ; aut eum habere tantum potiores 
partes, non vero totam plenitudinem hujus supremae 
potestatis ; aut banc ejus potestatem non esse 
ordinariam et immediatam sive in omnes ac singulas 
ecclesias, sive in omnes et singulos pas tores et fideles ; 
anathema sit." — Constitiitio Dogmatica prima de 
Ecclesia Christie cap. iii. 



APPENDIX E. 



Decisions ex Cathedra." 

*' Quelles etaient alors les conditions de Facte ex 

cathedra ? Qui peut dire ce qu'elles sont au- 
" jourd'hui ? Connait-on deux theologiens bien 
" d'accord sur ce point ? Nous parlerons des actes 
" ex cathedrd quand nous saurons ce que veut dire 
" le mot ex cathedral 

Most persons who have endeavoured to discover 
what the exact meaning of decisions ex catJiedrd is, 
will be inclined to sympathise very heartily with the 
above words of Pere ^ Gratry. 

Archbishop Manning tells us^ that the Vatican 
Council has defined the meaning. What the Council 
says is this: "We teach and define that it is a dogma 
" divinely revealed ; that the Roman Pontiff, when he 
" speaks ex cathedrd, that is, wJien in discharge of the 

office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, by 
" virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority he defines a 
" doctrine regarding faith or 7norals to be held by the 

Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised 

1 TroUieme letlre d, Mgr. Deschamps, p. 13. 

2 The Vatican Council, and its Definitions, London, 1870, p. 57. 

447 



448 



APPENDIX E. 



" to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that in- 
falUbility," i &c. 

But some persons have been able to accept the 
new dogma, that the Pope has the Church's infal- 
libility when he speaks ex cathedra, precisely be- 
cause neither the nature of the Church's infallibility 
nor the meaning of ex cathedra have ever been 
defined. It would seem, then, that the definition 
of the Vatican Council is itself in need of definition. 
We must fall back, therefore, on the explanations 
of the phrase which have been attempted elsewhere. 

Those not already committed to a position, w-ith 
which the meaning of ex cathedra must at all ha- 
zards be made consistent, v/ill probably agree with 
"Janus," ^ that beyond excluding off-hand remarks on 
dogmatic and ethical questions made by a pope 
in the course of conversation, the dislinction ex 
cathedra has no meaning. "When a pope speaks 

1 " Docemiis et diviuitus revelatum dogma esse definimus : Roma- 
«' num Pontificem, cum ex cathedra, loquitur, id est, cum omnium 
" Chrisiianorum Pastoriset Doctoris munere farigens, pro supreme sua 

Apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel moribus ab universa 
" Ecclesia tenendem definit, per assistentiam divinam, ipsi in bcato 
*' Pctro promissam, ea infallibilitate poUere, quadiviaus Hodemptor 
" Ecclcsiam suam in definienda doctrina de fiae vel moribus in- 
" structam esse voluit," &c — Conslituiio JJogmalica Vriim de Eccle- 
** Sid Ch isli, cap. iv,, sub. fin. 

2 Der Papsi und das Cvncit, p. d2t. Engiisli tiausiatiou, p. dUl. 



APPENDIX E. 449 

" publicly on a point of doctrine, either of his own 
" accord, or in answer to questions addressed to him, 
" he has spoken ex cathedra, for he was questioned as 
" pope, and successor of other popes, and the mere 
" fact that he has made his declaration publicly and 

" in writing makes it an ex cathedra judgment 

" The moment any accidental or arbitrary condition 

is fixed on wliich the ex cathedra nature of a papal 
" decision is to depend, we enter the sphere of the 

" pri'/ate crotchets of theologians Just as if one 

" Ciiose to say afterwards of a physician who had 
" been consulted, and had given his opinion on a 
" d'sease, that he had formed his diagnosis aixd 

prescribed his remedies as a private person, and rot 

" as a phj-^sician Thus Orsi maintains that 

" Ilonorius composed the dogmatic letter he issued in 

reply to the Eastern Patriarchs, and which was 
" afterwards condemned as heretical by the sixth 

(Ecumenical Council, only as * a private teacher ; ' 
" but the expression doctor privatus, when used of a 
" pope, is like talking of wooden iron." 

Some have maintained that before a pope speaks 
ex cathedra he must have thoroughly discussed the 
question to be decided, conferring with bishops and 
theologians. This appears to be the present view of 
Bishop liefele, judging from his recent most disap- 



450 



APPENDIX E. 



pointing letter to the clergy of his ^ diocese. But the 
learned author of the Conciliengeschichte does not tell 
us whether the consulting a synod is an indispensable 
condition of a definition ex catJiedrd^ or only a piece of 
ecclesiastical etiquette. If the latter, the statement is 
nugatory ; if the former, we have the startling paradox 
that the infallibility of an infallible Head is dependent 
on consultation with fallible subordinates. 

Bellarmine and his fellow Jesuit, Endsemon 
Johannes, make it a sine qua non that the Pope 
should address what he defines ex cathedra to the 
whole Church. Thus a decree or definition addressed 
to the Church in Fiance or in Germany would not 
necessarily be infallible. But surely what is truth for 

1 The words of our Constitution (Constilutio Dogmatica Priina r'e 
Eccieda Christi^ cap. iv.) : " Romani autem Poiitifices, prout tempo- 
" rum et rerum conditio suadebat, nunc convocatis oecumciiiris 
**' conciliis aut explorata Ecclesice per orbem di.sper.sa3 sententia, 
" nunc persynodos particulares, nunc aliis, qure divina siippedilabat 

providentia, adhibitis auxiliis, &c.," contain not only an lii.storical 
notice of what was done formerly, but also imply the rule, in 
accordance with which papal decisions ex cathedra will always 
be made. — Rundschreilen an dm hochivilrdigen Klerus. Eotten- 
burg, April 10th, 1871. 

But will it suffice if the Pope merely consults a synod, and then 
Gecrees what he pleases, whether the synod approve or no? Or 
must at least some of the synod agree with him ? Or will it be suffi- 
cient if he only consults those who are known to agree with him? 
" This question has become a crucial one since Itl-B, when Clement 
"XI. issued his famous Bull Unitjenitus, v.'hich he had druAvn up 
<' with the assistance of two cardinals only." — (Janus). 



APPENDIX E, 451 

one is truth for all. How can a proposition be an 
article of faith for France or Germany, if it is not an 
article of faith for the whole Church ? 

Others again, would make it of the essence of an 
ex cathedra decision that the document should have 
been affixed for a certain time to the door of St. 
Peter's, and in the Campofiore. 

[Bishop von Hefele, in his essay on Honorius, 
against De Margerie's pamphlet, Le Pape Honorius et 
le Breviaire Romain (Paris 1 870), takes the ground 
that Honorius spoke ex cathedra on the question in 
hand. He says : 

" Who does not know that it is extremely difficult 
to determine when the Pope speaks ex catJiedrd ? De 
Margerie propounds two criteria by which this may 
be known : 

" a. When the Pope proclaims in positive terms an 
opinion as an article of faith. Honorius, he argues, 
did not do this. But is not the following dictum 

positive : 

" We confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
(Unam voluntatem fatemur domini Jesu Christi. 
Mansi, T. xi., p. 539). 

" Further, Honorius says : * We have not learned 
from the Holy Scriptures that Jesus Christ. . . has one 
or two energies ; but that He acts in manifold mo^fs,^ 



452 APPENDIX E, 

{inultifonnitej" cognovlmus operatum, Mansi. p. 542). 
And is not Honorius prescribing this as a matter of 
faith ? Toward the close of his epistle, he says ; * This, 
my brethren, you will with us proclaim . . . and we 
exhort you (hortantes vos) that you avoid the new 
way of talking about one or two energies, etc' {Majisi^ 
xi., p. 543). 

" In the second epistle he is still more clear : ' As 
to the ecclesiastical dogma, and what we are bound 
to hold and to teach (quantum ad dogma ecclesiasti- 
cum pertinet quae tene7'e vel praedicare debemn>), Vv-.e 
are not bound to define that there is in the Mediator 
either one energy or two.' 

Thus Ilcnorius in fact proclaimed his thesis posi- 
tively, and pj'escrihed it. 

" b. But, says Margerie (p. 43), he did not enjjin it 
upon the ivhole luorld, and this is the second requisite 
of a dogma ex catJiedrd. 

" I do not know that a formal address to the v/hole 
Church is absolutely necessary to an ex cathedra defi- 
nition ; for if that be the case, the famous dogmatic 
epistle of Leo I. to Flavian was not given ex cathedra. 
But there is no doubt about the fact that Honorius 
would have the whole Church, and not merely the 
Church of Constantinople, believe what he pro- 
pounded." (See the Presbyteria^t Quarterly and Prince- 



APPENDIX E. 



453 



toji Review, April, 1872, pp. 299, 300.) Bishop Hefele, 
however, published the Vatican decree on Papal In- 
fallibility in April, 1 871, and gave in his adhesion to 
it, accompanying it with an interpretation on several 
points, as e.g., that this infallibility extends only to 
revealed truth about matters of faith and morals ; " 
that " the definitions alone are infallible, and not the 
introductory statements and arguments ; '* and, in 
fine, that the reason why a papal definition is in- 
fallible " is not to be found in the person of the Pope, 
but in the divine aid." This last is certainly a re- 
ma.kable interpretation : for if that was the real sense 
of the decree, none of the minority of the Council 
could have opposed. See a sharp criticism on these 
pi !nt3 in von Schulte's S 'tellimg der Concilien, Pdpste 
und Bischofe, Prag. 1871, s. 336-8. H. B. S.] 

Another necessary condition, according to some, 
is that the Pope should anathematize those who 
dispute the decision. 

Lastly, the Bishop of St. Polten maintains ^ that 

1 Die f Ische und die wah' e Unfehlharkeit der Ptipste, von Dr. 
Joseph Fessler, Bischof von St. Pulten, Wien, 1871. The pam- 
phlet contains some strange inconsistencies, as professor Bt rchtold 
has already pointed out, e. g. . On p. 34 Bishop Fessler maintains 
that the well known brief of Pius IX , MuUijdices inter (June 10, 1851), 
in which certain doctrines are condemned as heretical, is not a 
decision ex cathedra ; and the bishop ridicules professor Schulte for 
supposing that a definition of an article of faith could be made in 



454 APPENDIX E. 

the pope must expressly state that he is defining, in 
virtue of his office, as supreme teacher in the Church. 
Hence he would contend that it is still doubtful 
whether the present Pope's Syllabus is ex catJicdrdy 
and therefore infallible. Would Rome allow that it is 
doubtful } 

In considering these various, and in some cases 
extraordinary conditions, we can scarcely avoid the 
conclusion that they are for the most part artificial 
restrictions, invented for the purpose of excluding 
certain awkward utterances of popes from being ex 
cathedrd. Such efforts reach a climax when the view 
is deliberately put forth, that, ^ as no pope ever has 
spoken ex cathedrd from the beginning of time till 
now, so it is probable that henceforth till the end of 
time none ever will so speak. And nothing short of 
this desperate theory can save the Bull of Paul IV. — 
" Cum ex Apostolatiis officio',' March 15th, 1809 (one 

condemning a book. On p. 41, however, he tells ns that in theology 
it is a sure sign (sicheres Kennzeichen) of a dogmatic decision, 
when any doctrine is declared by the Pope to be heretical. The pam- 
phlet in style is perhaps scarcely what one would have expected 
from a prelate. 

1 What is the Meaning of the late Definition of the Ivfall hility of 
the Pope? An Enquiry. By W. Maskell, p. 10. Noticed by the 
Dean of Westminster in his recent pamphlet on The Aihanastan 
Creed. Dean Stanley justly remarks, '< Whether such interpretations 
" are. respectful to the documents which they profess to honour may 
" well be doubted." (p. 95.) 



APPENDIX E. 



455 



of the most terrible ever issued by a pope) — from 
being ex cathedra. Every ^ condition, even down to 
the affixing it on the doors of St. Peter's, is fulfilled. 
The Bishop of St. Polten attempts to exclude it, 
because it is not a decision in matters of faith — 
keine C^te^^^/^i-entscheidung ; " but it is most 
undeniably a decision in matters of morals, and these 
are claimed as within the sphere of papal infaUibility 
no less than matters of faith. 

1 It is perhaps worth while to quote the passages which prove 
this : — " Cum ex Apostolatus officio nobis, meritis licet imparibus, 

divinitus credito, cura Dominici grcgis nobis immineat generalis, 
" et exinde teneamur pro fideli illius cusiodia, et salubri directione, 
" more Vigilis l astoris assidue vigilare," &c. 

" Babita super his cum venerabilibus fratribus nostris S. E. E. 
" cardinalibus deUberatione matura, de eorum consilio, et unanimi 
" assensit,^^ &c. 

" Hac nostra in perpeiuum valilura constitutione, . ,,,de Aposio- 

" I 'cse potestatis plenitudine sancimus, statuimus, decernimus et 
definimuxj" &c. 

" Ut autem prsescntes literal ad omnium quorum interest notitiam 
" deducantur, volumus eas.,,.in BasiLicse Principis Apostolorum de 
" Urbe et Chancellarise Apostolicse vahis atqiie in acie campi FLrse 
" per aliquos ex cursoribus nostris publicari et affigi,'' &c. 

" Si quis autem hoc attentare pri^sumpserit, indignationein omni' 
^^poterUis Dei, ac Beatoram Petri et Pauli apostolorum ejus se noverit 
incursurum " — " hoc" being the infringing or opposing of the Bull. 
See an able article in the Allgemeine Zeitung (Beilage, April 11, 
1811 \ Die romische Frage, die papstsliche Sittenlehre und die euro* 
puische RecliLsordnung, 



APPENDIX F. 



The latest Defenders of Honorius. 



In order to be convinced how fatal the case of 
Honorius is to the claims of papal infaUibility, one 
has only to read a few of his apologists. The means 
resorted to in the vain attempt to overcome the in- 
surmountable difficulty, are so extraordinary and so 
various, that one feels that the truth must be on the 
side which is so fiercely and irrationally assailed. The 
controversy is one more proof of the simplicity of 
truth and the multiplicity of error. We are only 
concerned now with that mode of argument, lately 
renewed in high quarters, which w^ould demolish the 
case of Honorius as an instance of papal fallibility, by 
maintaining that the letters of Honorius are not 
heterodox. This method has at least the advantage 
of being bold. Three general councils have declared 
that these letters are heterodox, in fact, damnably 
heretical ; and pope after pope has confirmed the 
decision of these councils. But, in spite of that, three 
Roman archbishops publicly assure their clergy that 
the epistles of Honorius are perfectly orthodox. Pro- 
testant "private judgment" can scarcely go farther. 

456 



APPENDIX F. 



457 



A recent pastoral of the archbishop of Baltimore 
contains the following "excellent passage," quoted 
with approbation by Archbishop Manning : " The case 
of Honorius forms no exception ; for ist, Honorius 
expressly says in his letters to Sergius that he 
meant to define nothing, and he was condemned 
precisely because he temporized and would not 
" define ; 2nd, because in his letters he clearly taught 
the sound Catholic doctrine^ only enjoining silence as 
" to the use of certain terms, then new in the Church ; 
" and 3rd, because his letters were not addressed to a 
''general council of the whole Church, and were 
rather private than public and official ; at least they 
were not published, even in the East, until several 
" years later." 

The Archbishop of Westminster goes even further 
than his American brother. " I will, nevertheless, here 
" affirm that the following points in the case of Hono- 
*' rius can be abundantly proved from documents : — 
" (i.) That Honorius defined no doctrine whatsoever, 
(2.) That he forbade the making of any new 
" definition. (3.) That his fault was precisely in this 
omission ^ of Apostolic authority, for which he was 

1 Would the council have solemnly cursed Honorius for mere 
" omission of Apostolic authority ?" And would Pope Leo have 
spoken of such omission as a " profana proditio," aa attempt to 
subvert the faith ? 
8d 



45S APPENDIX F. 

"justly censured [i.e. anathematized]. (4.) That his 
" two epistles are entirely orthodox ; though, in the 
" use of language, he wrote, as was tcsual, before the 
" condemnation of MonotheHtism, and not as it 

became necessary afterwards. It is an anachronism 
" and an injustice .to censure his language before that 
" condemnation, as it might be just to censure it 
" after the condemnation had been made ; " ^ an 
anachronism of which three general councils and 
various popes have been guilty. One is not ashamed 
of being similarly guilty in company so respectable. 

It is difficult to decide which statement is the most 
audacious, that the letters of Honorius are entirely 
orthodox, or that the language for which he was 
anathematized was usual at the time. 

Similarly the Archbishop of Malines maintains of 
Honorius, that " non-seulement il n'a pas enseigne le 
monothelisme, mais il a formellement enseig7te le. 
contraire" 

Let us very briefly review the facts. 

Of the four Oriental patriarchs three had declared 
for the famous Nifie Articles, which were an attempt 
to make peace by means of a doubtful expression. ^ 

1 The Vatican Council and its Definitions : a Pastoral Letter to the 
Clergy, London, 1870. 

2 QeavdpcKa kvepyei.a — words capable of an orthodox, hut also of a 
monophysite interpretation. They occur in the seventh and crucial 
article. The first six are introductory ; the last two are anathemas. 



APPENDIX F. 



459 



The new patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronlscus, dis- 
regarding the promise which he had made as a 
private theologian, had called a synod and solemnly- 
condemned the Nine Articles, Now came the time 
when Honorius, hitherto quite passive, could keep 
silence no longer. He was formally asked for his 
decision. It would seem as if he never clearly 
understood the question. He gave four ^ different 

1 (1). " Unde et unam voluntatem fatemur D. N. Jesu Christi, 
" quia profecto a divinitate assumpta est nostra natura, non culpa 

[in] ilia profecto, quee ante peccatum creata est, non quae post prfe- 
" varicationem vitiata." (2). " Nam lex alia in membris^ aut voluntas 
" diversa non fuit, vel contraria salvatori, quia super legem natus est 
" humanse conditionis." (3), " Utrum autem propter opera divini- 
" tatis et humanitatis una an geminas operationes debeant deri 
" vatae dici vel intelligi, ad nos ista pertinere non debent, relin- 
*' quentes ea grammaticis, qui solent parvulis exquisita derivando 
" nomina veuditare. Nos enim non unam operationem vel duas 
" dommum Jesum Christum ejusque sanctum Spiritum, sacris Uteris 
*' percepimus, sed multifonniter cognovimus operatum." Honorii 
PP., Ep. III., Ad Sergium Constantinopolitanum Episcopum. Labbe, 
Concil J VI., 929, 932. (4), " Auferentes ergo, sicut diximus, scanda- 
" lum novellEB adinventionis, non nos oportet unam vel duas opera' 
" tiones definientes prse Ucare, sed pro una, quam quidam dicunt, 

operatione, oportet nos unum operatci«m Christum dominum in 

utrisque naturis veridice confiteri ; et pro duabus operationibup, 
« ahUHo geminsa operationis vocabulo, ipsas potius duas naturas, id est 
" divinitatis et carnis assumpt« in una persona unigeniti Dei 

Patris, inconfuse, indivise, atque inconvertibiliter nobiscum prjedi- 
« care propria operantem." " Scribentes etiam communibus fratribus 
" Cyro et Sophronio antistitibus, ne novoe vocis, id est, unius vel 

geminoe operationis vocabulo imistere vel immorari videantur : sed 
" abrasa hujusmodi novse vocis appellatione, unum Christum dominum 
« nobiscum in utrisque naturis divina vel humana pr£ediceut operan- 



46o 



APPENDIX F. 



answers, (i.) We must confess that Christ had only 
one will. (Which was heretical.) (2.) We must 
not say that Christ had two conflicting wills, of 
which the divine will compelled the human will to act 
in harmony with it. (Which no one had ever dreamed 
of saying.) (3.) It would be better not to talk either of 
one will or of two wills, but to leave such a mere 
question of language to grammarians. (Which was 
no answer at all.) (4.) We mzcst not talk either of 
one will or of two wills. The question cannot 
lawfully be discussed. (Which was a return to the 
absurd and disastrous policy of Zeno's Henoticon ; 
attempting to settle a vexed question by forbidding 
its discussion.) 

In the Ecthesis the Emperor gave this fourth dictum 
of Honorius the authority of an imperial decree. The 
Ecthesis was received with great favour in the East ; 
and Honorius would no doubt have accepted it. He 
died, however, before it reached Rome, October, a.d. 
638. 

[The literature about the case of Honorius has had 
an addition of some forty or fifty works and pamphlets 

" tern." Honorii PP. Ep. rv., ad eundem. Labbe, Concil., vi,, 969. 
A fresh discussion of the case of Honorius has just appeared in 
Germany. — Die Irrlehre des Honorius und das vaiicanische Decret. 
By A. Euckgaber, Stuttgart, 1871. The book has been placed on 
the Index, and the author has submitted to the condemnation. 



APPENDIX F. 461 

within the last few years. See the article by Bishop 
von Hefele, already referred to, translated in the 
Presbyterian Quarterly , K^xAy 1872; also Hefele's 
Conciliengeschichte^ vol. iii., pp. 129, 145, 264, 285. 
Mgr. Maret, Du Concile Gmeral et de la Paix 
Religietise, 2 Tome, Paris, 1869. The Case of Pope 
Hofiorius, by P. Le Page Renouf, London, 1869, is a 
reply to articles of Dr. Ward in the Dublin Review^ 
1868,-9 — and to a work by Father Bottala. The 
work entitled Mojiitmenta qucedam CatLsam Honor ii 
Spectantia^ Rome, 1870, is from the press of the 
Civilta Cattolica. Hefele says of it, that " the notes 
appended are almost worthless, and wholly insufficient 
to justify Honorius." Another more recent work by 
Professor Joseph Pennachi, of the Roman University, 
Liber de HonoriiL Romani Pontificis Catcsa, is written 
in a worthier spirit, but it attempts to prove that " the 
epistles of Honorius are absolutely catholic and give 
no countenance to the Monothelite heresy." In an 
Appendix to the German edition of his essay on 
Honorius, Bishop Hefele effectually disproves Pro- 
fessor Pennachi's position. H. B. S.] 



APPENDIX G. 



[Malachias was Archbishop of Armagh, and a special 
friend of St. Bernard, who wrote a work De Vita et 
Rcbits Gestis S, Malachice ; see Fabricius, Bibl. Med. 
et Inf. Latin., vol. v, under the word " Malachias." Of 
his prophecies about the popes a full and interesting 
account is given by H. Weingarten of Berlin, in the 
Studicn und Kritiken, 1857, S., 555-573- He was a 
man of singular virtue and austerity. Bernard spoke 
of his prophecies, which were not, however, published 
until 1595, by Wion, a Benedictine, in the works of 
his Order, under the title Lignum Vitce, Ornamentiim 
et Dccus EcclesicSy Venet. A controversy and a 
prolific literature sprung up about them. Protestants, 
like Bengel, extolled Malachias. Frorer pubHshed 
the work anew in his Propketce Veteres Prendepigraphiy 
Stuttg. 1840. In these predictions in popes are 
described by ill concise sayings, some of which are 
quite characteristic, while many of them are simple 
allusions to external facts and relations with play upon 
words. Lucius II. is described as inimicus expulsus — 
his family name was Caccianemico (caccia, chase, 
nemico, foe) ; and the Romans, too, expelled and 
stoned him. Innocent III. is comes signatus ; he 

462 



APPENDIX G. 4^3 

came of the counts of Conti, who had possessions in 
Segni. Pius 11. (yEneas Sylvius) is de capra et albergo^ 
for he was once secretary of the cardinals Capranica 
and Albergati. More characteristic are the words 
about Gregory XL de tribidatio7te pads, — for he lived 
just before troubled times (1621), and about Alex- 
ander VIIL, ciistos montiiLm, for he bore six mountains 
on his coat of arms, which led the daughter of 
Gustavus Adolphus to apply to him the proverb — • 
"parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus." (Wein- 
garten, p. 564.) The mottoes of some of the coming 
popes (eleven in all) are, " Lumen in coelo " (for the 
successor of Pius IX.) ; then, " religio depopulata," 
"fides intrepida," pastor angelicus," "pastor et 
nauta," " flos florum," etc The last one reads thus : 
" Petrus II. Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis 
tribulationibus, quibus transactis civitas septicolis 
diruetur et judex tremendus indicabit populum suum." 
Weingarten thinks it probable that the Benedictine 
• Wion is the real author, or finisher, of these prophecies, 
by which he sought to elevate his Order, and that 
they were ascribed to Malachias, partly on account of 
the similarity of his name with that of the last prophet 
of the Old Testament. H. B. S.] 



END. 




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